I Am Not In The Body, The Body Is In Me ~ Nisargadatta

As a special request from a dear one, this meditation will be a contemplation of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's words "I Am Not In The Body, The Body Is In Me". Thank you Rai for the request! Nisargadatta's book 'I Am That'--which is itself a precious souvenir from my 2019 travels in India--I read it very carefully this year, and sometimes I would get a shiver of insight from his direct pointers.
Observing our own experience at the moment, I hope I can transmit some of Nisargadatta's nondual pointers to you.
Sound: Nature Healing Society
Image: Getty (licensed)

Transcript

Make yourself comfortable. You may want to stretch a bit, You may want to take off any glasses that you're wearing. And you can take a deeper inhalation and deeper exhalation. And with every exhalation allow your body to become a little bit more soft, A little bit more grounded with gravity. And I want you not to think now that you're going to meditate. The idea of I'm going to meditate can become an actual obstruction to meditation. So instead do nothing. Just sit. Just observe. Observe your breathing. Observe sensations in your body. And even observe with your eyes open. This meditation I'd like to invite you to open your eyes, If you have closed them. And look around you. Just gently let your eyes and the environment interact naturally. No need to focus on anything. No need not to focus on anything. Just allow your eyes freedom and let seeing happen, As it already is happening. And without going to the mind, But staying in experience. In your experience right now, When you're looking and seeing, Do you see a separate seer? Separate objects? And is there a separate act of seeing? Or in your awareness, In your experience right now, Are seer, The scene and the act of seeing, Not separate? And as you feel your body right now, Go into the sensing of your body. Feel any sensations that are available to your tactile senses. Maybe you feel something on your skin, Maybe something in your belly. You can also feel where the breath is moving in and out of your body. If you're looking for a sensation and nothing comes, You can also squeeze your hands, Making fists and then releasing them and feel the sensation that that brings in your hands. Because we want to play a little bit with sensing the body. And again, Don't think about sensing, But feel the sensing. The sensing is already happening. Your body is sensing, Feeling all day long. So just find it. You don't have to make it or think about it. You can find it. And staying in your experience again, Do you feel any boundary between feeling, Feelings, And any person that is feeling the feelings? And I'll give you a hint. In your experience you will not find such a boundary. So in looking around us, We're looking at an object. Could even be your own hand for instance. You can discern your hand when you look at it. There they are, The fingers. And I have a sense of locality of here are my eyes. We can discern these things. But can you actually find any boundary that is being crossed from your eyes to your hands that you're seeing? Or are you noticing perhaps that there is no boundary? There is no separation between hand, Eyes, And some external act of seeing. So notice that there is no boundary. That in the seeing there is only seeing. And the label of object and subject, Seer and seen, Is superimposed in hindsight. It's not actually there in your experience. The same for the sound that you're hearing. Where do you hear that sound right now? In your experience right now, In reality, Not in your thoughts, In the hearing. Do you find a separate listener, A separate sound, A separate act of listening? Or is it in actual conscious awareness? Not separate. So just for a moment if you want to choose either of the three. So looking around or hearing the sound, Or sensing on or in your body. Take a moment and look. Don't ask a question, Looking for a mental answer. But look in your experience for any separation. And notice that there is no separation anywhere to be found. Again you might discern things, But there's no separation. Just like my hand has several hues of pink and red and some yellowish. I can discern these colors, But there's no separation. There's just seeing. So I want to invite you to just investigate this in your own experience right now. And if you think you found a boundary, Then I invite you to look closer. Is that a thought, Or is it an actual observation? If it's an observation, You can look closer at the observation. What is the observation made of? And then notice that anything we observe, Seeing, Feeling, Hearing, Is a kind of modulation of awareness. It's a kind of knowing. And in this knowing, There is no separation. Only in thought do we separate. In awareness there are no boundaries. Awareness has no boundaries. So keep looking and allow skepticism to come and then investigate. Not with thought, But in your experience, See. Do I notice any boundaries? So if we look like this in our experience, We notice that everything we've ever experienced, I'll make it a question, Check with yourself. Have you ever experienced anything that was outside of your awareness? And I'll give you the answer. The answer is no, Of course not. It's a rhetorical question of a little bit. There is no possibility of experience without awareness. Awareness is prior to any experience. Awareness is the medium of experience, Let's say. It's the ground. And because of that, Even you yourself, Or what you think to be yourself, Namely, Often we think that the body or the mind is ourself, Those are actually appearances in our awareness. Just look right now in your experience. How do you know your body? In your experience, Your body is given through the senses. Seeing, Hearing, Tasting, Smelling, Touching. So these are ways of knowing. And you know your body right now only through this knowing of the senses. And this knowing of the senses is an awareness. And this is the awareness that you are at depth. And that is why Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj says, You are not in the body. The body is in you. The mind is in you. They happen to you. And I will read two more quotes by Nisargadatta, Because they are so profound. And I really invite you to use these readings as a contemplation. Let the words really work. Don't resist the words with your mind, But feel the truth in your experience. If you don't feel the truth, That is fine. You just let it go. Ignore it. But allow for these words to touch you. You can observe the observation, But not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, Not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, But you know what you are not. The self is known as being. The not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, Observation and observer are mental constructs. The self alone is. One more quote. It is enough if you do not imagine yourself to be the body. It is the I am the body idea that is so calamitous. It blinds you completely to your real nature. Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, No shape. In the darkness and the silence, Reality is found.

Reviews

thank for this reflection.... the music almost put me to sleep 😊.... blessings 🩵🙏🩵