Nisargadatta Maharaj: The Earliest Discourses

Nisargadatta Maharaj started speaking sometime in the early 1950s. Initially he would speak on popular scriptures like Sage Eknath’s Bhagwat and Sage Ramdas’ Dasbodh. A few years later the subject matter of his talks spontaneously broadened up and by mid-1950s Maharaj was speaking less about the scriptures and more from his direct experience. Maharaj used to say, ‘I am not speaking these words; they are coming from the Absolute. Just as you hear them, I too am their witness.’

In 1954 Shankarrao Bajirao Dhaygude, one of Maharaj’s senior disciples, started noting down Maharaj’s discourses in their original language, Marathi. His jottings filled up five notebooks. He later shared these 45 discourses with his friend and Guru Bandhu Shri Dinkar Kshirsagar who edited them slightly, taking great care “not to add our own concepts to the text.”

These talks were first published in Marathi as ‘Sadguru Nisargadatta Maharaj Yanchi Durmil Nirupane’. These were then translated into English by Shri Mohan Gaitonde, Maharaj’s ‘evening’ translator, into the present work.

These earliest discourses of Nisargadatta Maharaj are noteworthy because they reveal a new facet of his teaching, including a deeper flavour of bhakti. They are also remarkable because they indicate how his Teaching intuitively evolved over the years. Since the Source spoke through Maharaj, his talks were Self-tuned to the need and capacity of his listeners. As a sidelight, these early talks are an interesting indication of the nature of Maharaj’s audience in the 1950s.