May 7, 2026
First a note about me. I’m in New York! Why? For various reasons that may become clearer as I go. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here, a couple weeks? A few months? I’ll keep you informed. But for now, a change of scene and a change of focus and I’m sure more to be revealed. You’ll be the first to know.
There is a guru I have a great deal of respect for. He was a simple tailor when he became liberated. He had no interest in having a following or being a renowned guru so he stayed a tailor, stayed with him wife and children and kept his humble little tailor shop and let people find their own way to him if they happened to.
Word spread and sometimes small groups would gather in his cramped room. Many foreigners soon learned of him and they began to come as well. Eventually the idea of recording his words occurred to someone and it was allowed. And much later those recordings made their way into a book. That book is one of my favorites of its type.
His spiritual title became Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. The book is called, I AM THAT. The following is an excerpt of an exchange that took place between him and a visitor from the West who is designated the Questioner, or “Q.” “M” designates his reply, the initial of his title Maharaj.
It a delightful mini-discourse as I think you might agree.
Enjoy,
XO Mayet
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Questioner: I have met some realized people, but never a liberated man. Have you come across a liberated man, or does liberation mean, among other things, also abandoning the body?
Maharaj: What do you mean by realization and liberation?
Q: By realization, I mean a wonderful experience of peace, goodness and beauty, when the world makes sense, and there is an all pervasive unity of both substance and essence. While such experience does not last, it cannot be forgotten. It shines in the mind, both as memory and longing. I know what I am talking about, for I have had such experiences.
By liberation, I mean to be permanently in that wonderful state. But what I am asking, is whether liberation is compatible with the survival of the body.
M: What is wrong with the body?
Q: The body is so weak and short-lived. It creates needs and cravings. It limits one grievously.
M: So what? Let the physical expressions be, and be limited. It is an instrument of experiencing, there is nothing amiss in this. But liberation is of the self from its faults and self-imposed ideas. Liberation is not contained in some particular experience, however, glorious.
Q: Does it last forever?
M: All experience is time bound. Whatever has a beginning must have an end.
Q: So liberation, in my sense of the word, does not exist.
M: On the contrary, one is always free. You are both conscious and free to be conscious. Nobody can take this away from you. Do you ever know yourself non-existing, or unconscious?
Q: I may not remember, but that does not disprove my being occasionally unconscious.
M: But who is it then that is conscious of your lapse into un, or less, conscious? Why not turn away from analyzing the experience of the experience, sir, and realize the full import of the only true statement you can make: ”I Am That.“
Q: How is that done?
M: Just keep in mind the feeling “I am”, merge into it, until your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts, you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection, and your mind will be firmly established in the thought–feeling I am. Whatever you think, say, or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as the ever-present background of the mind.
Q: And you call it liberation?
M: I call it normal. What is wrong with being, acknowledging, knowing and acting so effortlessly and happy? Why consider it so unusual as to expect the immediate destruction of the body? What is wrong with the body that it should die in encountering it? Correct your attitude to your body and leave it alone. Don’t pamper, don’t torture. Just keep that balance going, most of the time below the threshold of conscious attention. That is liberation. And you are the only liberator there is.
