The work in question is a collection of dialogues between Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian sage in the Advaita Vedanta tradition, and seekers who visited him in his modest dwelling in Mumbai. Presented in a question‑and‑answer format, it records his direct and uncompromising teaching on non-duality and self-realization. Rather than offering a speculative philosophy, the dialogues revolve around an experiential investigation into the nature of the Self and reality. The text has come to be regarded as a modern classic of Advaita, precisely because it preserves the immediacy and rigor of these living exchanges.

At the heart of these dialogues lies the assertion that the true “I” is not the body, mind, or personal history, but pure awareness or consciousness itself. Nisargadatta points to the primordial sense “I am” that precedes any identification such as “I am this” or “I am that,” and treats this bare sense of being as the doorway to one’s real nature. The personal identity, with its name, story, and psychological patterns, is described as a temporary construct arising in consciousness, and suffering is traced to the error of taking this construct as one’s true self. By distinguishing the transient from the timeless, the teaching invites a radical reorientation of what is taken to be “self.”

A recurring emphasis in the book is the practice of self-inquiry and the sustained abiding in the simple sense of being. Nisargadatta repeatedly directs attention away from conceptual elaboration and toward the immediate experience of awareness in which thoughts, emotions, and perceptions appear and disappear. The phenomenal world and the individual ego are treated as appearances within this awareness, rather than as independent realities. Liberation, in this context, is not portrayed as the acquisition of a new state, but as the clear recognition that one has always been this impersonal, limitless awareness.

The dialogues also stress earnestness, clarity of understanding, and disidentification from mental habits, rather than reliance on ritual, belief, or external forms of practice. Nisargadatta’s style is marked by radical directness and logical precision, cutting through metaphysical speculation in favor of insight that is immediate and lived. The book thus serves both as a rigorous exposition of non-dual insight and as a practical pointer for those drawn to examine the nature of the “I am” at the root of experience.