ECKHART TOLLE ON NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle described on YouTube the guru Nisargadatta Maharaj:

. . . Many of you know the teachings of Nisargadatta who wrote one of the greatest spiritual books--well, he didn’t write it, he spoke it--I AM THAT.

He was--had a stall in Bombay selling handmade cigarettes.  One would have thought “this is not making very good karma; you are making other people ill,”--and he smoked quite heavily himself apparently--and he just visited a guru, a teacher who said to him, “Well, just remember that you are consciousness, just be aware of the ‘I am,’ in whatever you do, and feel yourself as consciousness.”  “Oh, okay.”

And then Nisargadatta went off, back to his daily business, and he applied--can we call that a technique?--it’s too simple to be called a technique.  All he was--all he remembered was that “I am consciousness,” and he felt--attempted to feel the “I,” the deeper “I” that underlies all experiences, awareness itself.

And a few years later, it had emerged fully.  It didn’t come all at once, but it didn’t take very long, and then suddenly he started speaking wisdom.  A cigarette seller, almost illiterate, suddenly people would come and ask him questions, and intensely alive and wise answers came out of his mouth.

Something had come through the form, and so the cigarette seller became Nisargadatta Maharaj--in India they like giving people names; maharaj means “the great king,” spiritually, of course.  So this is one teacher to whom it (awakening) came not suddenly, although it didn’t take very long.  After a few years it became a continuous living presence.  Presence was continuous in him.