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Synopsis The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death. The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. This collection of the timeless teaching of one of the greatest sages of India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, regarded by many as a "modern spiritual classic", is a testament to the uniqueness of the seer's life and work. I Am That (now in its ninth printing) continues to draw new audiences and to enlighten anxious seekers for self-realization. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. His message is simple, direct and yet sublime. I Am That preserves his dialogues with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities. The sage's sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognize and penetrate its own state of being, not "being this or that, here or there, then or now, "but just timeless being. A simple man, Maharaj was a householder and petty store keeper in Bombay where he lived, and died in 1981 at the age of 84. He had not been educated formally but came to be respected and loved for his insights into the crux of human pain and the extraordinary lucidity of his direct discourse. Hundreds of diverse seekers traveled the globe and sought him out in his unpretentious home to hear him. To all them he gave hope that "beyond the real experience is not the mind, but the self, the light in which everything appears…the awareness in which everything happens." I Am That is a legacy from a unique teacher who helps the reader to a clearer understanding of himself as he comes to Maharaj again and again with the age-old question, "Whence am I? "who am I" and "whither am I?" The listeners were never turned away from the humble abode of Maharaj then and are not turned away now.