Abiding in I Amness – Common Mistakes on the Path

 In my last article, I talked about Nisargadatta’s teaching of abiding in the I Amness.

In this article, I want to explain a little bit more about this practice and also the pitfalls of it.

The practice is actually quite simple.

From moment to moment, you return to your I Amness.

That’s pretty much it. But in this video, I want to speak more about what’s happening during this practice, and some potential difficulties one may face.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we oftentimes seek understanding. We want to understand what this is, who we are, and everything else in the whole universe.

But understanding is useless.

When we talk about understanding something, we not only split up reality into two parts — the object that must be understood and the one who understands it — but we also refer to something that appears and disappears.

Therefore, we can’t trust our understanding.

Oftentimes, when we meditate, we think we understand something, but it’s only our small self attaching to some sort of insight.

And then we identify with this insight. We may even think this insight is very special.

But the Buddha said everything is impermanent. So even your understanding is impermanent and therefore not the absolute truth.

That’s why understanding cannot help you.

And that’s why a practice such as abiding in the I Amness is so powerful.

He did not tell his students to understand the I Amness, to figure it out. No, he just told them to sense into it — to abide in it.

It basically means to return to your I Amness in every moment.

You turn your awareness from anything that is not your I Amness to your felt sense of I Amness.

But what is this I Amness?

How do I know I abide in the I Amness and not in some idea about it?

Actually, this is quite easy but also quite difficult to do.

It is easy because every object you can become aware of is not you — the subject, the one who is looking.

And it’s difficult because we unconsciously attach to mental objects that make us believe “this is me.”

We might only later discover, “Oh, I thought this was me, but it turns out that this is only a feeling, an idea I identified with. Who am I?”

And this is pretty much the whole practice, in my opinion.

We have this one practice: abide in I Amness.

We turn our awareness from any object that is not I Amness to the very sense of “this is what most feels like me.” And in the process, you realize all the things that you are actually not.

Maybe you thought you are male or female, so-and-so old, doing this or that — whatever.

Then you see that your I Amness doesn’t depend on that. Your I Amness is not conditioned by who you are on a relative level, or what you do, or even what you think of yourself.

The felt sense of I Amness is way, way deeper. It’s like pure light — like existence itself.

In a sense, it’s the most subtle landing place your awareness can land on if you ask yourself this question.

So, when you do this practice, you might come upon different objects you identify with — your personality, your ego, your individual point of view.

You will recognize these more egoic attachments or ideas about yourself because they have a certain flavor to them.

When we talk about I Amness, we talk about pure light. And when we talk about ego, we talk about this light already split up into different colors — similar to a church window.

These colors have a certain condition. They will be unique to you, to your ego, to your small self.

People oftentimes get stuck at this level.

When they do this practice, they don’t get to the I Amness but get stuck at their level of personality.

When you are able to recognize certain qualities in your perceived sense of I Amness — like inferiority or superiority — you might feel really good and uplifted, or even bad and heavy. Whatever it is, it refers more to your ego than to your I Amness.

It will feel quite familiar to you, like “ahh, this is what it feels to be me.”

But it’s only a certain quality of your ego coming up.

So let’s not stop there.

When you come upon these objects, these identifications, don’t stop there.

Inquire further into your I Amness.

Ask yourself: What is the very thing that is recognizing this? Who am I beyond this identification?

If you do this, you start sensing into your I Amness. Your I Amness is more like the light from where everything comes. It’s like pure existence — not stained with anything.

It can also be viewed as the very act of looking, seeing, sensing itself.

When you do this practice, it may be that your landing place for what you think your I Amness is becomes subtler and subtler.

At first, you may land or abide on a very concrete sense you have about yourself.

Then you recognize, “Ahh, I am aware of this feeling — but who is the one that’s aware?”

Then you let this object, this feeling go, and turn your awareness to an even more subtle object that feels like your I Amness.

And you repeat that. You never get stuck at a certain feeling. You curiously inquire into your sense of I Amness — what is the most basic feeling that tells you that YOU ARE?

That’s why it’s quite similar to the practice of self-inquiry.

It’s about inquiring into your true nature, into your true self, into your I Amness, with an open mind that does not attach to anything it identifies or lands on.

You don’t get stuck but go deeper and deeper. You let go of all that is false and just try to return to who you really are — beyond all these veils.

And you don’t do that in order to understand something, or realize something, or get enlightened, because this would be attaching to a desire to understand — to seeking.

Your only job is to sense into your I Amness — to return to your True Self.

And you do that again and again and again. You try that in every moment of your life, whether you sit in meditation, go to work, or in any other life situation.

It’s important not to overthink it, because our egos like to have an agenda. They like to do something — to figure something out.

This practice only means returning to your I Amness and abiding there. That’s it.

This is very boring for your ego, and it will come up with ideas about this practice — ideas about realizing something, or ideas about how you are doing it in a very wrong way.

Do not hold yourself back with these thoughts.

If doubts come in, or if any other story tells you why NOT to just abide in your I Amness, just see it as a wave arising from the vast ocean.

The ocean is always there, but the wave is only temporary. So no matter what story you tell yourself, no matter how important it seems, just look at it from the view of being the ocean.

The wave will disappear anyway, so there is nothing to figure out about it. There’s no reason to follow the ideas of the wave — you can simply look at it and disregard it, turning your attention back to your I Amness.

When you do this practice, the devil will come with all his might. Remember the awakening story of the Buddha, where Mara, the devil, came upon him trying all possible ways to get him off his path.

We are not talking about a devil in a red costume here. We are talking about egoic tendencies — whatever they may be: fear, greed, desire, whatever.

Therefore, you’ll come upon many ideas that suggest you take it easy, that you don’t need to do this, that you won’t get anything from doing this…

Simply look at these ideas once they come up. See them, and then just reorient your awareness towards I Amness.

You don’t need to resolve these impulses. You don’t need to let them go or force yourself to accept them — all this happens by itself if you just acknowledge them, that they are here, but then turn around and sense into your I Amness, into your presence again.

So the instructions for this practice are very simple:

Sense into your I Amness and abide in it.

Or in Zen we would say: Return to your True Self.

And that’s it. There is no “then you do this, or you do that” — you just do that.

Only our egos want a more complicated practice, something where they can achieve something.

But here, we turn our awareness from these egoic tendencies, from our false ideas, to the very sense of being here right now — which, for the ego, seems to be very boring.

If you feel this is very boring, if you feel you don’t get anything from this practice, you are on a good way.

Just continue. From moment to moment, only return to your I Amness.

You can do this only when you sit in meditation for ten minutes a day, but this is not a very earnest and sincere practice. It’s maybe only like taking a short vacation — but this vacation will come to an end for sure.

If you are completely earnest and sincere, you practice it 24 hours a day — from moment to moment.

Just return to your True Self.

Alright, I hope this clarified a few questions about this practice.

If you have not returned to your I Amness yet, make sure to do that right now. 

I wish you all the best, your friend of the way.

Bye.