In Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching, what is commonly called suffering is traced back to a single fundamental error: the belief that one is the body–mind person with a history, roles, and attributes. By taking oneself to be “this” or “that”—a particular individual located in time and space—consciousness becomes entangled in fear, craving, and resistance. Events themselves are regarded as neutral; it is the personal interpretation, the sense that “this is happening to me and should not be so,” that generates psychological suffering. Physical or emotional pain may still arise, but suffering is seen as the mental overlay of identification, story, and resistance built upon that pain. In this light, suffering belongs only to the imagined separate person, while the real nature, the bare sense of being, remains untouched.

The way beyond suffering, for Nisargadatta, lies not in rearranging circumstances but in a radical reorientation of identity. He points again and again to the pure sense “I am” prior to any qualification—before “I am this” or “I am that”—as the doorway to one’s true nature. Through self-inquiry, questions such as “Who am I?” and “What am I?” are used to examine every assumed identity: body, thoughts, emotions, and roles are seen as changing appearances in consciousness rather than what one truly is. This inquiry is supported by a deliberate abiding in the simple feeling of existence, returning attention repeatedly to the unadorned “I am” and allowing all other identifications to fall away.

Practically, this takes the form of witnessing and negation. Thoughts, emotions, and experiences are observed as objects appearing in awareness, rather than as the essence of the observer. By recognizing “I am not this body,” “I am not these thoughts,” “I am not these emotions,” attachment to the transient loosens, and the supposed sufferer is seen as a construct. As understanding deepens, the center of gravity shifts from the restless ego, with its constant wanting and rejecting, to the impersonal awareness in which all phenomena arise and subside. In that recognition, suffering naturally diminishes, because the separate entity that could claim to suffer is no longer taken as real, and what remains is an underlying peace that is not affected by the changing conditions of body and mind.