Nisargadatta Maharaj doesn’t toss a textbook definition of “self” your way. Instead, he invites whoever’s listening to drop assumptions and lean into the raw sensation of “I am.” Through question-and-answer sessions—like a spiritual sparring match—he gently nudges the dialogue partner to notice that the thinker and the thought are not two separate things. What stays constant beneath ever-shifting mental chatter is simply “I am.”

Rather than getting lost in labels—“I’m a teacher,” “I’m Indian,” “I’m happy”—these conversations peel back identity like layers of an onion. The spotlight lands on pure awareness, the silent background where everything else plays out. Even modern mindfulness apps such as Calm or Headspace mimic this pointing-to-the-obvious: notice the breath, notice the mind. Maharaj, though, cuts right through any app-based fluff to reveal awareness as the living core.

Occasionally, his tone snaps like a proverbial slap, reminding that intellectualizing leads nowhere. By repeatedly asking, “Who are you?” and then insisting that any answer is just more name-and-form, he drives home that the Self is not a thought or a memory. It’s the unnameable presence witnessing all that appears and disappears.

In a world buzzing with AI chatbots debating identity or TikTok trends around “spiritual bypassing,” these dialogues feel surprisingly fresh. They strip away the noise—social media likes, career titles, even philosophical jargon—to point toward direct experience. At its heart, I Am That zeroes in on a simple discovery: before stories and screens, there’s just the ever-present sense of “I am,” and recognizing that is like suddenly seeing the stage behind the entire play.