As a brief note today, here is a short list of spiritual teachers I am aware of who have expressed the idea “I am not the body.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj made this the most obvious to me by writing a book titled, “I Am Not The Body,” but when you think about it, many spiritual teachers have said the exact same thing in different ways.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
As I mentioned, he literally wrote a book titled, “I Am Not The Body.”
Patanjali
“Then the Seer (Purusha, true self, pure consciousness) abides in its own true nature.”
“Yet we take the body to be our Self ... We touch the truth when we say, ‘My body aches,’ implying the body belongs to us and that therefore we are not that.”
Anandamayi Ma
“Father, there is little to tell. My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body.”
Ramana Maharshi
“The body is only an instrument. It is of the mind, and the mind itself is not real. One must realize that he is not the body and seek the source of the 'I'-thought.”
“The universe is only expanded Self. It is not different from the Self.”
“You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you.”
“Proper meditation is so intense it doesn’t even allow thinking, ‘I am meditating.’”
(Unrelated, but I also like his quote, “Think of God; attachments will gradually drop away.”)
Swami Vivekananda
“You are the soul, free and eternal ... The body is just an instrument in your hands.”
“The human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another.”
“Body is an unreal dream, and we think we are all bodies.”
“Body is the name of a stream of matter continuously changing.”
“Bodies come and go, but the soul does not change.”
“The root of evil is in the illusion that we are bodies. This, if any, is the original sin.”
Ram Dass (speaking about his teacher, Neem Karoli Baba)
“He didn’t identify with his body at all... He was always the soul, the pure consciousness.”
Shankaracharya (from Atma Bodha)
“I am not the body, nor the senses, nor the mind, but that which gives them light and life.”
Rumi
“I am not this hair, I am not this skin; I am the soul that lives within.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
Kabir
“The river that flows in you also flows in me. There is one source, but many rivers. Drop your skin, soul, and body—become the sea.”
Lao Tzu
“The body is only a carriage.”
Eckhart Tolle
“You are not your body. You are the awareness behind it.”
“The moment you realize you are not your body, not your thoughts, but the consciousness behind them, a shift occurs. You become free.”
Rajneesh
“Watch, witness. Your body is not you; your mind is not you. You are just a pure witness.”
Miscellaneous
IMHO, every other teacher who teaches a “noting” style of meditation is also saying the same thing: You can witness the body, and eventually that will lead you to enlightenment/liberation/awakening.
This includes teachers like Shinzen Young (noting, witnessing, such as being like a bird-watcher in a forest watching birds, and noting what they do, except you watch your body), Mahāsī Sayādaw (noting), Zen Master Seung Sahn (“What am I?”, “Who is doing xxx?”), and many more.
These quotes all reflect the essential teaching that the self is not confined to the physical body but is a part of a larger, transcendent consciousness.
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