A central thread in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching is the primacy of the simple sense of being, the bare “I Am.” This primordial awareness, prior to any qualification such as “I am this” or “I am that,” is presented as the essential doorway to understanding one’s true nature. By abiding in and investigating this unadorned feeling of existence, the seeker gradually loosens identification with the body, mind, and personal story. The “I Am” is treated as a bridge: it is fundamental and transformative, yet ultimately points beyond itself to the Absolute, which is unmanifest, unborn, and beyond all conceptualization.

Closely related to this is the persistent negation of false identity. Nisargadatta emphasizes that one is not the body, not the mind, not emotions, nor any composite of memories and habits that constitute the ego-personality. This apparent “person” is described as a bundle of conditioning, an imagined center with no independent substance. Through methods akin to neti-neti—“not this, not this”—the seeker is encouraged to discard each layer of identification. What remains, when these overlays are seen through, is pure awareness, which is not personal but universal and unchanging.

From this standpoint, the teaching of the witness becomes especially significant. All experiences—thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and events—are to be seen as objects appearing in consciousness, while the true Self is the detached observer that remains unaffected. Cultivating this witnessing position undermines the belief in an individual doer who controls actions. Actions are understood to arise spontaneously within consciousness, and the habitual claim “I do” or “I think” is recognized as the root of psychological suffering. As this sense of ownership weakens, a more spontaneous way of living, free from rigid attachment to results, naturally emerges.

Finally, Nisargadatta situates the entire play of world and individuality within the perspective of maya, or appearance. The world and personal identities are described as illusory projections arising in consciousness: real as appearances, yet lacking independent, enduring reality when measured against the Absolute (Parabrahman). Liberation, therefore, is not the acquisition of some new state but the clear recognition of what has always been the case: that one’s true nature is pure awareness, prior to all phenomena. This recognition is not portrayed as a gradual attainment but as an effortless, instantaneous seeing, once earnest inquiry has exhausted the fascination with what one is not.