Just BE, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’

“You cannot possibly say that you are what you think yourself to be! Your
ideas about yourself change from day to day and from moment to moment. Your
self-image is the most changeful thing you have. It is utterly vulnerable, at the mercy
of a passer by. A bereavement, the loss of a job, an insult – and your image of
yourself, which you call your person, changes deeply. To know what you are, you
must first investigate and know what you are NOT. And to know what you are not, you
must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with the
basic fact: ‘I am’. The ideas: I am born at a given place, at a given time, from my
parents and now I am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of, employed by, and so
on, are not inherent in the sense ‘I am’. Our usual attitude is: ‘I am this’. Separate
consistently and perseveringly the ‘I am’ from ‘this’ or ‘that’, and try to feel what it
means to BE, just to BE, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’. All our habits go against it and
the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a
lot. The clearer you understand that, on the level of the mind, you can be described in
negative terms only, the quicker you will come to the end of your search and realize
your limitless being.”

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That