The Pathway of Subtraction

Category Ego, Enlightenment

photo by Lutz-R. Frank

We often perceive growth and development as a process of addition. We learn new skills and techniques, acquire more knowledge, understand deeper truths, read more books, attend more seminars, search for more spiritual teachers, and so on, but the pathway to awakening doesn’t play by these rules.

The “enlightened you” that you are looking for is actually the one who is looking and thus as long as you are looking for something to obtain or an understanding to acquire, you’re missing it. It is the seeker who is the one being sought.

Awakening is a process of subtraction.

What am I?

Am I the mind? No.

Am I the body? No.

Am I the beliefs and personality? No.

Am I the temporary role that is being played of the seeker, father, mother, son, teacher, or anything else? No.

What you are is realized by cutting away identification with that which you are not.

Strip away all false ideas which cover up Truth and the Truth of your being will become radiantly apparent.

It’s impossible for the Real You to not be, for it already is. All that’s necessary is for the self to quit making up stories about what it thinks it is and to just Be.

The more one can surrender all false ideas, the quicker Reality will be realized.

What you are looking for already exists here and now, not just as some potential reality that will come about if you change your thoughts and beliefs to believe you are enlightened, but if you literally drop away all those thoughts and look at what’s left.

I know nothing. Nothing except that I am.

With the stripping away of that which I am not, the Reality of that which you are automatically comes rushing in. What you truly are is everything, but this is only realized by first stripping away that which you are not. This understanding arises automatically, not deliberately. It can not be taken by force.

Love says “I am everything”. Wisdom says “I am nothing”. Between the two, my life flows.

-Nisargadatta Maharaj

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12 Responses to “The Pathway of Subtraction”

Jarrod - Warrior Development said:

I think it is interesting that as we are subtracting away all the things we are not, we finally come to us and realise that we are far more expansive than anything we subtracted.

Essentially it is a process of expanding possibilities.

Jarrod – Warrior Developments last blog post..Awesomeness has No Cost
Avani said:

Jarrod, my thoughts exactly.

Read somewhere – ‘I am’ is a sentence by itself. Everything after that is association/belief.

Avanis last blog post..Saying No – And Feeling Good About It
Ariel Bravy said:

Bingo. A lot of spirituality is like that… backwards universe.
Avani said:

‘Backward universe’ funny how you frame it. But it’s so true. It’s said that in the beginning we knew everything, and then we forgot. Life is all about rediscovering the same things, going a full circle only to reach the place from where the journey had begun.

Avanis last blog post..Saying No – And Feeling Good About It
Ariel Bravy said:

…only to realize that everything we had been searching for all along had been available within us the entire time. “Life” is then realized to be one amazing cosmic joke, like a roller coaster ride for the Divine.
Psiplex said:

Greetings,

Just discovered the site and this post. Read the Sri Nisargadatta Quote and felt the vibe. Battling head and neck cancer has been a path to discovering this “I” and the purpose for life. There is no possible way to have forseen where this experiencer/experience took place. In the consciousness of this present moment, there is such gratitude and thankfulness for asking, as Nisargadatta pointed “Who Am I?” The deepness and stillness of this inquiry is revealing, unburdening and teaching.

Had a bit of an inspirtational spark posted on my blog at psiplex.com about Nisargadatta, the shopkeeper who knew himself to be divine. Such a lightening rod to shake unconsciousness and explain the most simple and the most profound (for the mind-made self)teachings.
The poem describes Nasirgadatta’s vendor shop in old Bombay, India. Hope you get a chance to look it over

One Love

Psiplexs last blog post..All Ever Is
Ariel Bravy said:

Welcome, welcome Psiplex. It is a joy to have the consciousness that you are interacting with the consciousness that I am.
Andrea Hess|Empowered Soul said:

I think beyond the subtraction of “I am not this, I am not that” lies integration – I am everything. We are our body as much as we are our mind or our Spirit or the world itself – no separation. It’s all one.

Blessings,
Andrea

Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Bingo Andrea.

Sure we could logically say that at the most fundamental level, we are all energy and there is no separation, but the mind doesn’t really have a reason to conclude that time and space don’t actually exist, that distance is an illusion, that you and I are really the exact same thing, not just connected parts of one continuous being, that we are literally infinite and not limited in any way, and so on.

The integration you mention is precisely what happens after we let go of everything else. Applying the principles of Oneness can absolutely have many benefits in our day to day life even without personal experiential realization, but if one wants to truly realize it for themselves, they gotta learn to walk before they can run.
Bissett said:

In these difficult time, the only real treasure if we can call it that way for any better word, that our Nisargadatta, the so called simple man for the educated ones, when one analizes the truth about our concepts of deception, the only reality cannot be grasped by the mind, as we are all that sea of pure conciousness, there is nothing to fix, add, substract, improves and all the adjectives of a fearful mind afraid of itself, so, we`re free even times are tough, there money or globalisation or stock exchange, government to name just a few are all imagined allucination, only when one realizes the other is oneself that peace and love will resort back to what it knows best, just loving, as heat can only give warmth.

Ariel Bravy Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Bisset, that is such a huge point: the realization that realization of our true nature is the only thing which brings true peace, love, and well-being, no matter the external circumstances. It’s particularly valuable in times of economic turmoil such as today. Thank you so much for bringing this up.
Evelyn Lim said:

I love the message to this post: We are what we are not. I also like its implied meaning that we are far more than we know. Love is what binds us from within. Essentially, We are One.

To expanding possibilities,
Evelyn

Evelyn Lims last blog post..What Enneagram Profile Type Am I?