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 Three
Not through the mind.
It is only your mind that prevents
self-knowledge. (517)
[The cause of suffering is] self-identification with the limited.
Sensations as such, however strong, do not cause suffering. It is
the mind, bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking "I
am this", "I am that", that fears loss and craves
gain and suffers when frustrated. (110)
Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination. (113)
There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance;
restlessness itself is mind. (142)
A level of maturity is reached when nothing external is of any
value, and the heart is ready to relinquish all. Then the real
has a chance and it grasps it. Delays, if any, are caused by the
mind being unwilling to see or discard. (514)
You cannot see the true unless you are at peace. A quiet mind is
essential for right perception, which again is required for
self-realization. (481)
When the mind has been put to rest and disturbs no longer the
inner space (chidakash), the body acquires a new meaning and its
transformation becomes both necessary and possible. (496-7)
The mirror can do nothing to attract the sun. It can only keep
bright. As soon as the mind is ready, the sun shines in. [The
light] is uncaused and unvarying by itself, and coloured by the
mind as soon as it moves and changes. It is very much like a
cinema. The light is not in the film, but the film colours the
light and makes it appear to move by intercepting it. (54)
The world is but the surface of the mind and the mind is
infinite. What we call thoughts are just ripples in the mind.
When the mind is quiet it reflects reality. When it is motionless
through and through, it dissolves and only reality remains. (484)
What is going on is a projection of your mind. A weak mind cannot
control its own projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind
and its projections. You cannot control what you do not know. On
the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very
siple. To control yourself, know yourself. (121)
Deal with your mind first. When you realize that your mind too is
a part of nature, the duality will cease. Because nature is in
the mind; without the mind, where is nature? (186)
Use your mind to know your mind. It is perfectly legitimate and
also the best preparation for going beyond the mind. (520)
Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap. The mind
misunderstands; misunderstading is its very nature. Right
understanding is the only remedy. (520)
All change affects the mind only. To be what you are, you must go
beyond the mind, into your own being. It is immaterial what is
the mind that you leave behind, provided you leave it behind for
good. This again is not possible without self-realization.
Self-realization definitely comes first. The mind cannot go
beyond itself by itself. It must explode. The explosive power
comes from the real. But you are well advised to have your mind
ready for it. (522)
Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion. It is
definitely beyond the mind, but all you can do is to know your
mind well. Not that the mind will help you, but by knowing your
mind you may avoid your mind disabling you. You have to be alert,
or else your mind will play false with you. It is like watching a
thief - not that you expect anything from a thief, but you do not
want to be robbed. In the same way, you give a lot of attention
to the mind without expecting anything from it. (189)
Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you
watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you
stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the
light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is
the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that
source and abide there. (188)
No state of mind can be more real than the mind itself. Is the
mind real? It is but a collection of states, each of them
transitory. How can a succession of transitory states be
considered real? The illusion of being the body-mind is there
only because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is the
thread on which all the states of mind are strung. It is like
darkness in a closed room. It is there - apparently. But when the
room is opened, where does it go? It goes nowhere, because it was
not there. All states of mind, all names and forms of existence
are rooted in non-enquiry, non-investigation, in imagining and
credulity. It is right to say "I am", but to say
"I am this", "I am that" is a sign of not
enquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy. Sadhana
(practice) consists in reminding oneself forcibly of one's pure
being-ness, of not being anything in particular, nor a sum of
particulars, not even the totality of all particulars, which make
up a universe. All exists in the mind, even the body is an
integration in the mind of a vast number of sensory perceptions,
each perception also a mental state. Think of yourself. Only
don't bring the idea of a body into the picture. There is only a
stream of sensations, perceptions, memories and ideations. The
body is an abstraction, created by our tendency to seek unity in
diversity. (134-135)
Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the body, depend on
the condition of the brain. But the self is beyond both, beyond
the brain, beyond the mind. The fault of the instrument is no
reflection of its user. (114)
Concern yourself with your mind, remove its distortions and
impurities. Once you had the taste of your own self, you will
find it everywhere and at all times. Therefore it is so important
that you should come to it. Once you know it, you will never lose
it. (413)
You are the Self, here and now. Leave the mind alone, stand aware
and unconcerned, and you will realize that to stand alert and
detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your real
nature. (19)
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. Do understand that
you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny,
don't go against it, don't thwart it. Allow it to fulfill itself.
All you have to do is to give attention to the obstacles created
by the foolish mind. (311)
Moods are in the mind and do not matter. Go within, go beyond.
Cease being fascinated by the content of your consciousness. When
you reach the deep layers of your true being, you will find that
the mind's surface-play affects you very little. (531)
What was never lost can never be found. Your very search for
safety and joy keeps you away from them. Stop searching, cease
losing. The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple. It
is your mind only that makes you insecure and unhappy.
Anticipation makes you insecure; memory, unhappy. Stop misusing
your mind and all will be well with you. You need not set it
right, it will set itself right, as soon as you give up all
concern with the past and the future and live entirely in the
now. (230)
Of the unknowable only silence talks. The mind can talk only of
what it knows. If you diligently investigate the knowable, it
dissolves and only the unknowable remains. But with the first
flicker of imagination and interest the unknowable is obscured
and the known comes to the fore-front. The known, the changing,
is what you live with; the unchangeable is of no use to you. It
is only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for
the unchangeable that you are ready for the turning round and
stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of
the mind, as emptiness and darkness. For the mind craves for
content and variety, while reality
is, to the mind, contentless and invariable. (436)
What prevents you from knowing yourself as all and beyond all, is
the mind based on memory. It has power over you as long as you
trust it. Don't struggle with it; just disregard it. Deprived of
attention, it will slow down and reveal the mechanism of its
working. Once you know its nature and purpose, you will not allow
it to create imaginary problems. What problems can there be which
the mind did not create? Life and death do not create problems;
pains and pleasures come and go, experienced and forgotten. It is
me-mory and anticipation that create problems of attainment or
avoidance, coloured by like and dislike. (475)
The problem is not yours - it is your mind's only. Begin by
disassociating yourself from your mind. Resolutely remind
yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not
yours. (125)
How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot.
It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to
shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind. (18)
Leave your mind alone, that is all. Don't go along with it. After
all, there is no such thing as mind apart from thoughts which
come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They dominate you
only because you are interested in them. (350)
It is the mind that tells you that the mind is there. Don't be
deceived. All the endless arguments about the mind are produced
by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and
expansion. It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions
and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it. (321)
Having never left the house you are asking for the way home. Get
rid of wrong ideas, that is all. Collecting right ideas also will
take you nowhere. Just cease imagining. Don't try to understand!
Enough if you do not misunderstand. Don't rely on your mind for
liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go
beyond it altogether. (206)
There is no such thing as mind. There are ideas and some of them
are wrong. Abandon the wrong ideas, for they are wrong and
obstruct your vision of yourself. Assertions are usually wrong,
and denials right. Only by denying can one live. Assertion is
bondage. To question and deny is necessary. It is the essence of
revolt and without revolt there can be no freedom. (517)
General knowledge develops the mind, no doubt. But if you are
going to spend your life in amassing knowledge, you build a wall
round yourself. To go beyond the mind, a well-furnished mind is
not needed. (50)
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)
Leave it all behind you. Forget it. Go forth, unburdened with
ideas and beliefs. Abandon all verbal structures, all relative
truth, all tangible objectives. (340)
All are mere words, of what use are they to you? You are
entangled in the web of verbal definitions and formulations. Go
beyond your concepts and ideas; in the silence of desire and
thought the truth is found. (295)
Too much analysis leads you nowhere. There is in you the core of
being which is beyond analysis, beyond the mind. You can know it
in action only. The legitimate function of the mind is to tell
you what is not. But if you want possitive knowledge, you must go
beyond the mind. (341)
Before you can know anything directly, non-verbally, you must
know the knower. So far, you took the mind for the knower, but it
is not so. The mind clogs you up with images and ideas, which
leave scars in memory. You take remembering to be knowledge. True
knowledge is ever fresh, new, unexpected. It wells up from
within. When you know what you are, you also are what you know.
Between knowing and being there is no gap. (520)
Consciousness, being a product of conditions and circumstances,
depends on them and changes along with them. What is independent,
uncreated, timeless and changeless and yet ever new and fresh is
beyond the mind. When the mind thinks of it, the mind dissolves
and only happiness remains. (488)
[With self-awareness] you grow more intelligent. In awareness you
learn, in self-awareness you learn about yourself. Of course, you
can only learn what you are not. To know what you are, you must
go beyond the mind. Awareness is the point at which the mind
reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek not
what pleases, but what is true. (346)
Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Do this one
thing thoroughly. That is all. (197)
See everything as a dream, as a show, as a film.
Just remember, nothing perceivable
is real. (354)
All you can do is to grasp the central point: that reality is not
an event and does not happen, and whatever happens, whatever
comes and goes, is not really. See the event as event only, the
transient as transient, experience as mere experience, and you
have done all you can do. But as soon as there is some like or
dislike, you have drawn a screen. (190)
Everyone creates a world for himself and lives in it, imprisoned
by one's ignorance. All we have to do is to deny reality to our
prison. (208)
Don't be afraid of a world you yourself have created. Cease from
looking for happiness and reality in a dream and you will wake
up. (453)
This is the mystery of imagination, that it seems to be so real.
You may be celibate or married, a monk or a family man; that is
not the point. Are you a slave of your imagination, or are you
not? Whatever decision you take, whatever work you do, it will be
invariably based on imagination, on assumptions parading as
facts. (355)
When the body is born, all kinds of things happen to it, and you
take part in them because you take yourself to be the body. You
are like the man in the cinema house, laughing and crying with
the picture, though knowing fully well that he is all the time in
his seat and the picture is but the play of light. It is enough
to shift attention from the screen to oneself to break the spell.
(389)
When the body dies, the kind of life you live now, succession of
physical and mental events, comes to an end. It can end even now,
without waiting for the death of the body. It is enough to shift
attention to the Self and keep it there. All happens as if there
is a mysterious power that creates and moves everything. Realize
that you are not the mover, only the observer, and you will be at
peace. Of course not [:that power is not separate from you]. But
you must begin by being the dispassionate observer. Then only
will you realize your full being as the universal lover and
actor. As long as you are enmeshed in the tribulations of a
particular personality, you can see nothing beyond it. (389)
If you stand aloof as obrserver only, you will not suffer. You
will see the world as a show, a most entertaining show indeed.
(380)
Stop hurting yourself and others, stop suffering, wake up. When
you begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away.
(74)
It [the dream] appears to be beginnigless, but in fact it is only
now. From moment to moment you are renewing it. Once you have
seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see
because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you
will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and
mind, and be willing to pay the price; the price will be
dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream
itself. Wanting it to continue is not inevitable. See clearly
your condition, your very clarity will release you. (506)
There is no need of a way out [of the dream]! Don't you see that
a way out is also a part of the dream? All you have to do is see
the dream as dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is
illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming a
dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The
problem is not the dream. Your problem is that you like one part
of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop
complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have
done all that needs be done. (117)