Nonduality Presents
ASMI
Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT
compiled and edited by Miguel-Angel Carrasco
Numbers after quotations refer to pages of the edition by Chetana (P) Ltd, Bombay, 1992.
The way to Realization: Part One
Not through activity. No effort is
necessary, but there is a
precondition: earnestness now.
Not through activity.
Where is the need of changing anything? The mind is changing
anyhow all the time. Look at your mind dispassionately; this is
enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not
keep it busy all the time. Stop it, and just be. If you give it
rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength.
Constant thinking makes it decay. (311)
Nothing you do will change you, for you need no change. You may
change your mind or your body, but it is always something
external to you that has changed, not yourself. Why bother at all
to change? Realize once for all that neither your body nor your
mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in
your true nature beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. No
effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding.
(520)
Don't try to reform yourself, just see the futility of all
change. The changeful keeps on changing while the changeless is
waiting. Do not expect the changeful to take you to the
changeless - it can never happen. Only when the very idea of
changing is seen as false and abandoned, the changeless can come
into its own. (521)
Most people's activities are valueless, if not outright
destructive. Dominated by desire and fear, they can do nothing
good. Ceasing to do evil precedes beginning to do good. Hence the
need for stopping all activities for a time, to investigate one's
urges and their motives, see all that is false in one's life,
purge the mind of all evil and then only restart work, beginning
with one's obvious duties. (345)
If you are earnest, you will find that in the end you will get
fed up with roaming and regret the waste of energy and time. To
find your self you need not take a single step. (334)
The self-styled gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits and
achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental
formations, projections of an addicted mind. Instead of helping,
they obstruct. (422)
Do not rush into activity. Neither learning nor action can really
help. (260)
It is not what you do, but what you stop doing that matters.
(483)
Activity is not action. Action is hidden, unknown, unknowable.
You can only know the fruit. (354)
Action does not lead to perfection; perfection is expressed in
action. (419)
There is a difference between work and mere activity. All nature
works. Work is nature, nature is work. On the other hand,
activity is based on desire and fear, on longing to possess and
enjoy, on fear of pain and annihilation. Work is by the whole for
the whole, activity is by oneself for oneself. (219)
Your mind is steeped in the habits of evaluation and acquisition,
and will not admit that the incomparable and unobtainable are
waiting timelessly within your own heart for recognition. All you
have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations. Just keep
yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness. (498-9)
Do nothing, just be. In being all happens naturally. (227)
Be nothing, know nothing, have nothing. This is the only life
worth living, the only happiness worth having. (499)
You can do nothing. What time has brought about, time will take
away. This is the end of yoga, to realize independence. All that
happens, happens in and to the mind, not to the source of the
"I am". Once you realize that all happens by itself
(call it destiny, or the will of God, or mere accident), you
remain as witness only, understanding and enjoying, but not
perturbed. You are responsible only for what you can change. All
you can change is only your attitude. There lies your
responsibility. (451)
You cannot change your circumstances, but your attitudes you can
change. (480-1)
There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen
according to their nature. Clarity and charity is action. Love is
not lazy and clarity directs. You need not worry about action,
look after your mind and heart. Stupidity and selfishness are the
only evil. (496)
In reality things are done to you, not by you. Your desire just
happens to you along with its fulfilment or non-fulfilment. You
can change neither. You may believe that you exert yourself,
strive and struggle. Again, it all merely happens, including the
fruits of the work. Neither is by you and for you. All is in the
picture exposed on the cinema screen, nothing in the light,
including what you take yourself to be, the person. You are the
light only. (481)
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. (298)
Everybody wants to be active, but where do his actions originate?
There is no central point: each action begets another,
meaninglessly and painfully, in endless succession. The
alternation of work and pause is not there. First find the
immutable centre where all movement takes birth. Just like a
wheel turns round an axle, so must you be always in the centre
and not whirling at the periphery. (349)
The witness is that which says "I know". The person
says "I do". Now, to say "I know" is not
untrue, it is merely limited. But to say "I do" is
altogether false, because there is nobody who does; all happens
by itself, including the idea of being a doer. The universe is
full of action, but there is no actor. There are numberless
persons small and big and very big, who, through identification,
imagine themselves as acting, but it does not change the fact
that the world of action (mahadakash) is one single whole in
which all depends on, and affects all. The stars affect us deeply
and we affect
the stars. Step back from action to consciousness, leave action
to the body and the mind; it is their domain. Remain as pure
witness, till even witnessing dissolves in the Supreme. (400-1)
Liberation is not the result of some means skilfully applied, nor
of circumstances. It is beyond the causal process. Nothing can
compel it, nothing can prevent it. (456)
The Self is near and the way to it is easy. All you need doing is
doing nothing. (236)
Stay open and quiet, that is all. What you seek is so near you
that there is no place for a way. (196)
Having realized that you cannot influence the results, pay no
attention to your desire and fears. Let them come and go. Don't
give them the nourishment of interest and attention. (481)
There is nothing to do. Just be. Do nothing. Be. No climbing
mountains and sitting in caves. I do not even say: "be
yourself", since you do not know yourself. Just be. Having
seen that you are neither the "outer" world of
perceivables, not the "inner" world of thinkables, that
you are neither body nor mind, just be. (331)
No effort is necessary.
Do not imagine that you can change through effort. Violence, even
turned against yourself, as in austerities and penance, will
remain fruitless. (498)
Your needs are unreal and your efforts are meaningless. (339)
There is no place for effort in reality. It is selfishness, due
to self-identification with the body, that is the main problem
and the cause of other problems. And selfishness cannot be
removed by effort, only by clear insight into its causes and
effects. Effort is a sign of conflict between incompatible
desires. They should be seen as they are - then only they
dissolve. (476)
Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced
that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident
that unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere
verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the
absolute nothingness of the self-image. (523)
The people who begin their sadhana are so feverish and restless
that they have to be very busy to keep themselves on the track.
An absorbing routine is good for them. After some time, they
quieten down and turn away from effort. In peace and silence, the
skin of the "I" dissolves and the inner and the outer
become one. The real sadhana is effortless. (483)
In each [school of yoga], one can progress up to the point when
all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further
progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort
ceases; in solitude and darkness, the last step is made which
ends ignorance and fear for ever. (477)
Abandon every attempt, just be; don't strive, don't struggle, let
go every support, hold on to the blind sense of being, brushing
off all else. This is enough. (494)
You can also grow like this [effortlessly, like a child], but you
must not indulge in forecasts and plans, born of memory and
anticipation. (285)
It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in
the results of your efforts - the motive, the desire, the failure
to achieve, the sense of frustration - all this holds you back.
Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
(148)
It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between
the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to
walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just
find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But
when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse
to play the game, you are out of it. (349)
A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once
your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active,
so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light
of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and
work miracles without any effort on your part. (311)
The window is the absence of the wall, and it gives air and light
because it is empty. Be empty of al mental content, of all
imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will
cause reality to rush in. (260)
Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the
blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to
you most naturally and effortlessly. (261)
Keep the "I am" in the focus of awareness, remember
that you are , watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious
will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your
part. (447)
There is no effort in witnessing. You understand that you are the
witness only, and the understanding acts. You need nothing more,
just remember that you are the witness only. (303)
Having realized that I am with, and yet beyond the world, I
became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I
should be free, I found myself free, unexpectedly, without the
least effort. (269)
[I can describe the supreme, natural state] only by negation, as
uncaused, independent, unrelated, undivided, uncomposed,
unshakable, unquestionable, unreachable by effort. (16)
But there is a precondition: earnestness now.
All waiting is futile. To depend on time to solve our problems is
self-delusion. The future, left to itself merely repeats the
past. Change can only happen now, never in the future. (402)
Action delayed is action abandoned. There may be other chances
for other actions, but the present moment is lost, irretrievably
lost. All preparation is for the future - you cannot prepare for
the present. (493)
Once you realize that the body depends on the mind, and the mind
on consciousness, and consciousness on awareness, and not the
other way round, your question about waiting for self-realization
till you die is answered. It is not that you must be free from
the "I-am-the-body" idea first, and then realize the
self. It is definitely the other way round - you cling to the
false because you do not know the true. Earnestness, not
perfection, is a precondition to self-realization. Virtues and
powers come with realization, not before. (434)
For this [self-realization], you need a well-ordered and quiet
life, peace of mind and immense earnestness. (491)
Earnestness is not a yearning for the fruits of one's endeavours.
It is an expression of an inner shift of interest away from the
false, the unessential, the personal. (455-6)
[The person is removed] by determination. Understand that it must
go and wish it to go - it shall go if you are earnest about it.
(441)
It is earnestness that is indispensable, the crucial factor.
Sadhana is only a vessel and it must be filled to the brim with
earnestness, which is but love in action. For nothing can be done
without love. (482-3)
You must find your own way. Unless you find it yourself, it will
not be your own way and will take you nowhere. Earnestly live
your truth as you have found it, act on the little you have
understood. It is earnestness that will take you through, not
cleverness - your own or another's. (499)
To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action;
there can be no deceit in the search for truth. (515)
Try. One step at a time is easy. Energy flows from earnestness.
(528)
Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your
next, to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of
longing will guide you; you need no other guide. (236)
It is the absolute in you that takes you to the absolute beyond
you - absolute truth, love, selflessness are the decissive
factors in self-realization. With earnestness these can be
reached. (461)
The remedy lies in clarity and integrity of thinking. Try to
understand that you live in a world of illusions, examine them
and uncover their roots. The very attempt to do so will make you
earnest, for there is bliss in right endeavour. (529)
Mere physical renunciation is only a token of earnestness, but
earnestness alone does not liberate. There must be understanding
which comes with alert perceptivity, eager enquiry and deep
investigation. You must work relentlessly for your salvation from
sin and sorrow. (534)