Nisargadatta Maharaj on Personality / Advice to a Seeker

Questioner: Why do you keep on dismissing the person as of no importance? Personality is the primary fact of our existence. It occupies the entire stage.

Maharaj: As long as you do not see that it is mere habit, built on memory, prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person – living, feeling , thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. Question yourself, ask yourself. ‘Is it so?’ And soon you will see your mistake. And it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

The Questioner reveals some of his history:

I am an adopted child. My own father I do not know. My mother died when I was born. My foster father, to please my foster mother, who was childless, adopted me – almost by accident. He is a simple man – a truck owner and driver. My mother keeps the house. I am 24 years now. For the last two and a half years I am travelling, restless, seeking. I want to live a good life, a holy life. What am I to do?

Maharaj: Go home, take charge of your father’s business, look after your parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be loyal, be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently. The five senses and the three qualities (gunas) are your eight steps in Yoga. And ‘I am’ is the Great Reminder (mahamantra). You can learn from them all you need to know. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly. That is all.

(from I AM THAT: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj )

The ‘I am’ is the focus on consciousness as such and not any particular conformation of it.