I am

De Indiase Advaita Vedanta leraar Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) beschreef een keer zijn pad tot inzicht op de volgende manier:

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out who you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I turned away my attention from it and remained with the sense 'I am'. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. In the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am - unbound.

I simply followed my teacher's instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared - myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.