63.
Notion of Doership is Bondage
Questioner:
We have been staying at the Satya Sai Baba Ashram for some time. We
have also
spent
two months at Sri Ramanashram at Tiruvannamalai. Now we are on our
way back to the
United
States.
Nisargadatta:
Did India cause any change in you?
Questioner:
We feel we have shed our burden. Sri Satya Sai Baba told us to leave
everything to him and
just
live from day to day as righteously as possible. 'Be good and leave
the rest to me', he used to
tell
us.
Nisargadatta:
What were you doing at the Sri Ramanashram?
Questioner:
We were going on with the mantra given to us by the Guru. We also
did some meditation.
There
was not much of thinking or study; we were just trying to keep
quiet. We are on the
bhakti
path and rather poor in philosophy. We have not much to think about
-- just trust our Guru and live
our
lives.
Nisargadatta:
Most of the bhaktas trust their Guru only as long as all is well
with them. When troubles come,
they
feel let down and go out in search of another Guru.
Questioner:
Yes, we were warned against this danger. We are trying to take the
hard along with the soft.
The
feeling: 'All is Grace' must be very strong. A sadhu was walking
eastwards, from where a
strong
wind started blowing. The sadhu just turned round and walked west.
We hope to live just like
that
-- adjusting ourselves to circumstances as sent us by our Guru.
Nisargadatta:
There is only life. There is nobody who lives a life.
Questioner:
That we understand, yet constantly we make attempts to live our
lives instead of just living.
Making
plans for the future seems to be an inveterate habit with us.
Nisargadatta:
Whether you plan or don't, life goes on. But in life itself a little
whorl arises in the mind, which
indulges
in fantasies and imagines itself dominating and controlling life.
Life itself is desireless. But
the
false self wants to continue -- pleasantly. Therefore it is always
engaged in ensuring one's
continuity.
Life is unafraid and free. As long as you have the idea of
influencing events, liberation is
not
for you: The very notion of doership, of being a cause, is bondage.
Questioner:
How can we overcome the duality of the doer and the done?
Nisargadatta:
Contemplate life as infinite, undivided, ever present, ever active,
until you realise yourself as
one
with it. It is not even very difficult, for you will be returning
only to your own natural condition.
Once
you realise that all comes from within, that the world in which you
live has not been projected
onto
you but by you, your fear comes to an end. Without this realisation
you identify yourself with
the
externals, like the body, mind, society, nation, humanity, even God
or the Absolute. But these
are
all escapes from fear. It is only when you fully accept your
responsibility for the little world in
which
you live and watch the process of its creation, preservation and
destruction, that you may be
free
from your imaginary bondage.
Questioner:
Why should I imagine myself so wretched?
Nisargadatta:
You do it by habit only. Change your ways of feeling and thinking,
take stock of them and
examine
them closely. You are in bondage by inadvertence. Attention
liberates. You are taking so
many
things for granted. Begin to question. The most obvious things are
the most doubtful. Ask
yourself
such questions as: ‘Was I really born?' 'Am I really so-and-so?’
'How do I know that I exist?
'Who
are my parents?’ 'Have they created me, or have I created them?'
'Must I believe all I am told
about
myself?' ‘Who am I, anyhow?'. You have put so much energy into
building a prison for
yourself.
Now spend as much on demolishing it. In fact, demolition is easy,
for the false dissolves
when
it is discovered. All hangs on the idea 'I am'. Examine it very
thoroughly. It lies at the root of
every
trouble. It is a sort of skin that separates you from the reality.
The real is both within and
without
the skin, but the skin itself is not real. This 'I am' idea was not
born with you. You could have
lived
very well without it. It came later due to your self-identification
with the body. It created an
illusion
of separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your
own world and made
the
world alien and inimical. Without the sense of 'I am' life goes on.
There are moments when we
are
without the sense of 'I am'. at peace and happy. With the return of
the 'I am' trouble starts.
Questioner:
How is one to be free from the 'I'-sense?
Nisargadatta:
You must deal with the 'I'-sense if you want to be free of it. Watch
it in operation and at peace,
how
it starts and when it ceases, what it wants and how it gets it, till
you see clearly and understand
fully.
After all, all the Yogas, whatever their source and character, have
only one aiNisargadatta: to save you
from
the calamity of separate existence, of being a meaningless dot in a
vast and beautiful picture.
You
suffer because you have alienated yourself from reality and now you
seek an escape from this
alienation.
You cannot escape from your own obsessions. You can only cease
nursing them.
It
is because the ‘I am' is false that it wants to continue. Reality
need not continue -- knowing itself
indestructible,
it is indifferent to the destruction of forms and expressions. To
strengthen, and
stabilise
the 'I am' we do all sorts of things -- all in vain, for the 'I am'
is being rebuilt from moment to
moment.
It is unceasing work and the only radical solution is to dissolve
the separative sense of 'I
am
such-and-such person' once and for good. Being remains, but not
self-being.
Questioner:
I have definite spiritual ambitions. Must I not work for their
fulfilment?
Nisargadatta:
No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of the 'I
am'. If you want to make real
progress
you must give up all idea of personal attainment. The ambitions of
the so-called Yogis are
preposterous.
A man's desire for a woman is innocence itself compared to the
lusting for an
everlasting
personal bliss. The mind is a cheat. The more pious it seems, the
worse the betrayal.
Questioner:
People come to you very often with their worldly troubles and ask
for help. How do you know
what
to tell them?
Nisargadatta:
I just tell them what comes to my mind at the moment. I have no
standardised procedure in
dealing
with people.
Questioner:
You are sure of yourself. But when people come to me for advice, how
am I to be sure that my
advice
is right?
Nisargadatta:
Watch in what state you are, from what level you talk. If you talk
from the mind, you may be
wrong.
If you talk from full insight into the situation, with your own
mental habits in abeyance your
advice
may be a true response. The main point is to be fully aware that
neither you nor the man in
front
of you are mere bodies; If your awareness is clear and full. a
mistake is less probable.