Gems From Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

1. The ‘I am’ came first, it’s ever present, ever available, refuse all thoughts except ‘I am’, stay there. You are sure of the ‘I am’, it’s the totality of being, remember ‘I am’ and it’s enough to heal your mind and take you beyond. Hold on to the ‘I am’ to the exclusion of everything else, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world, the ‘I am’ at peace becomes the Absolute. 
2. Immortality is freedom from the feeling ‘I am’, to have that freedom remain in the sense ‘I am’, it’s simple, it’s crude, yet it works! The ‘I am’ is the sum total of all that you perceive, it’s time bound, the ‘I am’ itself is an illusion, you are not the ‘I am’ you are prior to it. The knowledge “I Am” has spontaneously appeared on your Absolute state; therefore it is an illusion. The feeling “I Am” is itself an illusion, therefore whatever is seen through this illusion cannot be real.
3. The ‘I am’ is your greatest foe and greatest friend, foe when binding to the illusion as body, friend when taking out of the illusion as body. The beginning and the end of knowledge is the ‘I am’, be attentive to the ‘I am’, once you understand it, you are apart from it. The ‘I am’ concept is the last out post of the illusion, hold on to it, stabilize in the ‘I am’, then you are no more an individual. As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality, which is essentially impersonal. First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centres of observation, and then realize that immense ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond both.
4. Only be the ‘I am’, just be, the ‘I am’ has appeared on your homogenous state, the one free of the ‘I am’ is liberated, you are prior to the ‘I am’. Remain focused on the ‘I am’ till it goes into oblivion, then the eternal is, Absolute is, Parabrahman is. 
5. Prior to birth where was the ‘I am’? Don’t contaminate the ‘I am’ with the body idea, “I” as the Absolute “Am”; not the ‘I am’. Understand that the knowledge ‘I am’ has dawned on you and all are its manifestations, in this understanding you realize you are not the ‘I am’. When this concept ‘I am’ departs there would be no memory left that ‘I was’ and ‘I had’ those experiences, the very memory will be erased. 
6. Out of the nothingness, the ‘I am’ or beingness has come, there is no individual, the knowledge ‘I am’ not the individual – has to go back to its source. Go on to know the ‘I am’ without words, you must be that and not deviate from it for even a moment, and then it would disappear. 
7. Just sit and know that “you are” the “I Am” without words, nothing else has to be done; shortly you will arrive to your natural Absolute state. What is it in you that understands this knowledge “I Am” without a name, title or word? Sink in that innermost center and witness the knowledge “I Am”. Sitting quietly, being one with the knowledge ‘I am’, you would lose all concern with the world, then the ‘I am’ would also go, leaving you as the Absolute. The core of this consciousness is the quality ‘I am’, there is no personality or individual there, reside there and transcend it.
8. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed for you and your dependents' barest needs. Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. The dissolution of personality is followed always by a sense of great relief, as if a heavy burden has fallen off. Every existence is my existence, every consciousness is my consciousness, every sorrow is my sorrow and every joy is my joy - this is universal life. You will see the world as a show, the most entertaining show indeed.
9. Be friendly with your undifferentiated state, your true Self. There was never any division, but you are under the delusion that you are not one with it. You are never bound by body and mind. You are limitless. You, the Absolute are aloof, you are beyond any experience. In the absence of the basic concept 'I am' there is no thought, there is no consciousness. Consciousness is a great fraud; it is the cause of all suffering.