Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was born on Hanuman’s birthday, in March 1897, He was given the name, Maruti, in honor of Hanuman. His father worked as a servant and then later bought some land and became small time farmer. After Maruti’s father died, in 1915, Maruti followed his oldest brother to Bombay. In 1924 he married Sumatibai and with her became the parents of three daughters and a son. He started out as a clerk in an office but that did not suit him tempermentally and he soon took to petty trading. He opened a bidi shop (shop for hand rolled coarse cigarettes) and began selling them. He became prosperous.

He had a friend named Yashwantrao Bagkar, an intellegent seeker of truth. They would have discussions and one day his friend brought him to meet Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj. Although Maruti was moved by Sri Siddharameshwar, he felt the teaching was beyond him. Maruti was given a Mantra, which is totally in keeping with the Navnath tradition, and instructions on how to meditate. His practice really started to take off between 1933-1936.

Sri Siddharameshwar died in 1936 and evoked in Maruti a strong feeling of renunciation which he acted upon. He abandoned his family and bidi businesses and took off for the Himalayas. Srikant Gogte and P.T. Phadol, in the introduction of Sri Nisargadatta's book "I am That" say of this, "On his way to the Himalayas, where he was planning to spend the rest of his life, he met a brother-dsciple, who convinced him about the shortcomings of a totally unworldly life and the greater spiritual fruitfulness of dispassion in action." When he returned he found that out of six shops only one remained, but that was enough for the sustenance of his family, Maruti became Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, devoting all his free time to meditation on his guru’s instruction.

A couple of years before Sri Nisargadatta was meeting Sadguru Siddharemeshwar for the first time, a nearly disguised young American traveler on a spiritual quest toward Enlightenment himself --- that gained fame anonymously some years later in a novel by the famous British playwright W. Somerset Maugham titled The Razor's Edge --- visited Sri Siddharemeshwar, one of the first Americans to do so.

The young American traveled to Bijapur to meet with the Maharaj and while there learned of Vihangam Marg, the birds' way. The Maharaj related to him what Sri Nisargadatta learned later as well: "that only by hearing and practising from the teachings of the Master and thinking over it, just like the bird flies from one tree to another, can one attain Awakening very fast." Although "the bird's way" is NOT incorporated into Maugham's book, it DOES play an interesting role later on as the life of the young American unfolds post-novel, and the interaction that occurs in the Awakening experience of another (see). Nor is "the bird's way" rendered specifically in Sri Nisargadatta's works either, however he wanted the understanding of Final Reality to be accessible to all, so he refused to use complicated or technical language, using instead examples taken from daily life, preaching in the more direct, very simple and lucid language of Vihangam Marg.

Sri Nisargadatta continued to live the life of an ordinary Indian working-man but his teaching, which he set out in his master-work "I Am That" and which are rooted in the ancient Upanishadic tradition, made a significant philosophical break from contemporary thought. Devotees traveled from all over the world to hear Nisargadatta's unique message until his death in 1981. An example of one who was moved by his works is Aziz Kristof, billed as a non-traditional Advaita Zen master, who, upon reading Nisargadatta's book I Am THAT, writes most eloquently:

"At that moment, I knew that I found my master. He spoke to my essence, his spirit deeply touched my heart. From him I realised the necessity of stabilising the State Presence to which I was already awakened. He called this the I Am-ness. For the first time, I received clarity regarding the Path and recognised the necessity of the right effort. Maintaining the State of Presence became a new task; it was a new challenge. I went for long walks, attempting not to lose the State, not for a single moment."

Interestingly enough, when the Wanderling, whose Zen Mentor was the SAME person as the person refered to as an "anonymous American" above, was working on, as well as in need of a title for his paper on personal Attainment, read a book by Yatri called "UNKNOWN MAN: The Mysterious Birth of a New Species," (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1988), that mentioned the term Dark Luminosity he recalled the following passage in Sri Nisargadatta's book "I Am That":

"Look closely and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can be said to be, not its transformations. In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper. And the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point, and by your movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the immensity of light in the body, as the sense "I am". There is only light, all else appears. To the mind, it [that light] appears as darkness. It can be known only through its reflections. All is seen in daylight - except daylight. To be the point of light tracing the world is turiya. To be the light itself is turiyatita. But of what use are names when reality is so near?"

"To the mind, it [that light] appears as darkness. It can be known only through its reflections." The sentence, that light is itself turiyatita that appears as darkness, and Yatri's comments brought forth the title Dark Luminosity.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is a spiritual brother of Sri Ranjit Maharaj.

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'I Am That' is Nisargadatta Maharaj's most well known
book and perhaps the best selling Advaita (nonduality)
book in the West. Translated by Dr. Maurice Frydman.

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