In Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching, self-inquiry stands as the central discipline because it directly exposes the difference between the assumed person and the deeper reality of pure awareness. The inquiry is not meant as a philosophical game, but as a radical questioning of every identification with body, mind, emotions, and personal history. By repeatedly examining “Who am I?” and “To whom does this occur?”, all that is seen to be changing and observable is recognized as not the true Self. This process does not construct a new spiritual identity; rather, it undermines the apparent solidity of the old one, revealing the impersonal witnessing presence in which all experiences arise and subside.

A distinctive feature of Nisargadatta’s approach is the emphasis on the raw sense of existence, the simple feeling “I am.” Self-inquiry, in this context, means resting attention in this bare sense of being, before it is qualified as “I am this” or “I am that.” By staying with the unadorned “I am,” without conceptual elaboration, the seeker gradually sees its transient nature and is led to that which is prior to it. This abiding in the “I am” is not merely a concentration exercise but a doorway to recognizing the Absolute, the timeless, unconditioned reality that is beyond both being and non-being.

Nisargadatta consistently stressed that such inquiry must be experiential rather than merely intellectual. Conceptual understanding, however refined, is regarded as insufficient if it does not turn attention away from objects—world, body, and mind—toward the subject, the knower, and ultimately beyond the individual knower to pure awareness itself. Through this direct investigation, the witness consciousness that observes all mental states yet remains untouched by them becomes evident as one’s true nature. When the illusion of being a separate, limited person is dismantled in this way, the roots of fear, desire, and psychological suffering are cut, and what remains is a stable abidance in the Absolute that Nisargadatta points to throughout his teaching.