Note to self: Stay with the "I am"

"Hold on to the sense of 'I am'
 to the exclusion of everything else."

" 'I am' is first-hand and needs no proofs.
   Stay with it."

"Be aware of being conscious and
 seek the source of consciousness. 
 That is all.  Very little can be conveyed in words. 
 It is the doing as I tell you 
 that will bring light, 
 not my telling you."

                   ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj


You have read or been told repeatedly
to stay with the feeling "I am", 
to just be aware of awareness itself
without thinking about it,
and to do this earnestly, with complete devotion.

But you don't follow that advice, for whatever reason.
You do not remain still long enough to follow that advice.
Just follow the advice you've been given!
You enquired, and so you were told.
Now I'm suggesting that you shut up and do it.
Be still, and just be aware of awareness itself,
without thinking or reasoning about it.
Thinking or reasoning about it is not necessary
and only serves as to distract you.

Still, we don't follow that advice.
Perhaps it's because awareness itself, not being
fully "seen" or recognized, seems to be too uninteresting
to hold our attention, at first glance, and we're easily 
drawn off into *thinking* about it, or some line of 
reasoning or another, thereby taking our eye off the target, 
so to speak, without even knowing it until much later.
We're just more interested in excercising our
ego-intellects with a myriad of philosophical 
concepts and questions, which are more entertaining
and ego-gratifying, moreso than simple awareness
of awareness itself, in which thought and the ego
have no role or necessary part in.  They constantly
re-appear to re-assert themselves, to be the one who 
serves up "awareness" and provide a wise analysis of it 
to boot.  All imagination.

Just be still, and notice this sense of I-AM-ness
that is reflected in your mind, and stay with it.  
That is all that is being pointed to.
Do you exist?  Are you aware?  
See how this is undoubtable.
This is the ONLY thing you know for certain, actually,
and it requires NO thinking or reasoning for it to be so.
Everything else is doubtable and debatable --
everything else -- because everything else consists
of thinking and reasoning, and awareness itself 
precedes that, totally untouched and unmoved by that.
Awareness itself is what is being point to.
Don't stay with the pointers, just go to where they point,
and stay there, silently.  All will then unfold by itself.
This is enough to go on.