"The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it
comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving,
you enter a state which cannot be verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to
do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have
attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc.
All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to
be what you are not."

--quoted from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj