I Am That

I Am That records the talks of Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian sage of the Navnath Sampradaya who taught from a small upstairs room in Bombay while living as a humble shopkeeper. Its central claim is that the bare, prior-to-thought sense of being, the feeling "I Am," is the doorway beyond the personal self to impersonal awareness, and ultimately to the absolute reality that is "prior to consciousness" itself.

The method, received from his guru Siddharameshwar, is to abide in the sense "I Am," holding attention on the simple fact of existence until identification with the person falls away. The teaching is delivered as direct pointing, an uncompromising, immediate confrontation of the seeker's assumptions rather than a graduated discipline.

One of the most influential nondual texts of the twentieth century, the book parallels Ramana Maharshi's "Who am I?" and underscores self-inquiry as a perennial, cross-cultural method. Through students such as Ramesh Balsekar it became a primary upstream source for the Western neo-Advaita teachers who populate the contemporary nondual field.