16.
Desirelessness, the Highest Bliss
Questioner:
I have met many realised people, but never a liberated man.
Have you come across a
liberated
man, or does liberation mean, among other things, also
abandoning the body?
Nisargadatta:
What do you mean by realisation and liberation?
Questioner:
By realisation I mean a wonderful experience of peace,
goodness and beauty, when the world
makes
sense and there is an all-pervading unity of both substance
and essence. While such
experience
does not last, it cannot be forgotten. It shines in the
mind, both as memory and longing.
I
know what I am talking about, for I have had such
experiences.
By
liberation I mean to be permanently in that wonderful state.
What I am asking is whether
liberation
is compatible with the survival of the body.
Nisargadatta:
What is wrong with the body?
Questioner:
The body is so weak and short-lived. It creates needs and
cravings. It limits one grievously.
Nisargadatta:
So what? Let the physical expressions be limited. But
liberation is of the self from its false and
self-imposed
ideas; it is not contained in some particular experience,
however glorious.
Questioner:
Does it last for ever?
Nisargadatta:
All experience is time bound. Whatever has a beginning must
have an end.
Questioner:
So liberation, in my sense of the word, does not exist?
Nisargadatta:
On the contrary, one is always free. You are, both conscious
and free to be conscious. Nobody
can
take this away from you. Do you ever know yourself
non-existing, or unconscious?
Questioner:
I may not remember, but that does not disprove my being
occasionally unconscious.
Nisargadatta:
Why not turn away from the experience to the experiencer and
realise the full import of the only
true
statement you can make: 'I am'?
Questioner:
How is it done?
Nisargadatta:
There is no 'how' here. Just keep in mind the feeling 'I
am', merge in it, till your mind and feeling
become
one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right
balance of attention and affection
and
your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling
'I am'. Whatever you think, say, or do,
this
sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as the
ever-present background of the mind.
Questioner:
And you call it liberation?
Nisargadatta:
I call it normal. What is wrong with being, knowing and
acting effortlessly and happily? Why
consider
it so unusual as to expect the immediate destruction of the
body? What is wrong with the
body
that it should die? Correct your attitude to your body and
leave it alone. Don't pamper, don't
torture.
Just keep it going, most of the time below the threshold of
conscious attention.
Questioner:
The memory of my wonderful experiences haunts me. I want
them back.
Nisargadatta:
Because you want them back, you cannot have them. The state
of craving for anything blocks
all
deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind
which knows exactly what it wants.
For
nothing the mind can visualise and want is of much value.
Questioner:
Then what is worth wanting?
Nisargadatta:
Want the best. The highest happiness, the greatest freedom.
Desirelessness is the highest bliss.
Questioner:
Freedom from desire is not the freedom I want. I want the
freedom to fulfil my longings.
Nisargadatta:
You are free to fulfil your longings. As a matter of fact,
you are doing nothing else.
Questioner:
I try, but there are obstacles which leave me frustrated.
Nisargadatta:
Overcome them.
Questioner:
I cannot, I am too weak.
Nisargadatta:
What makes you weak? What is weakness? Others fulfil their
desires, why don't you?
Questioner:
I must be lacking energy.
Nisargadatta:
What happened to your energy? Where did it go? Did you not
scatter it over so many
contradictory
desires and pursuits? You don't have an infinite supply of
energy.
Questioner:
Why not?
Nisargadatta:
Your aims are small and low. They do not call for more. Only
God's energy is infinite -- because
He
wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires
will be fulfilled. The higher your aims
and
vaster your desires, the more energy you will have for their
fulfilment. Desire the good of all and
the
universe will work with you. But if you want your own
pleasure, you must earn it the hard way.
Before
desiring, deserve.
Questioner:
I am engaged in the study of philosophy, sociology and
education. I think more mental
development
is needed before I can dream of self-realisation. Am I on
the right track?
Nisargadatta:
To earn a livelihood some specialised knowledge is needed.
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.
Questioner:
Then what is needed?
Nisargadatta:
Distrust your mind, and go beyond.
Questioner:
What shall I find beyond the mind?
Nisargadatta:
The direct experience of being, knowing and loving.
Questioner:
How does one go beyond the mind?
Nisargadatta:
There are many starting points -- they all lead to the same
goal. You may begin with selfless
work,
abandoning the fruits of action; you may then give up
thinking and end in giving up all desires.
Here,
giving up (tyaga) is the operational factor. Or, you may not
bother about any thing you want,
or
think, or do and just stay put in the thought and feeling 'I
am', focussing 'I am' firmly in your mind.
All
kinds of experience may come to you -- remain unmoved in the
knowledge that all perceivable is
transient,
and only the 'I am' endures.
Questioner:
I cannot give all my life to such practices. I have my
duties to attend to.
Nisargadatta:
By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are
not emotionally involved and which
is
beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you.
You may be engaged in several
directions
and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and
quiet, with a mirror-like mind,
which
reflects all, without being affected.
Questioner:
Is such a state realisable?
Nisargadatta:
I would not talk about it, if it were not. Why should I
engage in fancies?
Questioner:
Everybody quotes scriptures.
Nisargadatta:
Those who know only scriptures know nothing. To know is to
be. I know what I am talking
about;
it is not from reading, or hearsay.
Questioner:
I am studying Sanskrit under a professor, but really I am
only reading scriptures. I am in search
of
self-realisation and I came to get the needed guidance.
Kindly tell me what am I to do?
Nisargadatta:
Since you have read the scriptures, why do you ask me?
Questioner:
The scriptures show the general directions but the
individual needs personal instructions.
Nisargadatta:
Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer
teacher (Guru) is merely a
milestone.
It is only your inner teacher, that will walk with you to
the goal, for he is the goal.
Questioner:
The inner teacher is not easily reached.
Nisargadatta:
Since he is in you and with you, the difficulty cannot be
serious. Look within, and you will find
him.
Questioner:
When I look within, I find sensations and perceptions,
thoughts and feelings, desires and fears,
memories
and expectations. I am immersed in this cloud and see
nothing else.
Nisargadatta:
That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner
teacher. He alone is, all else only
appears
to be. He is your own self (swarupa), your hope and
assurance of freedom; find him and
cling
to him and you will be saved and safe.
Questioner:
I do believe you, but when it comes to the actual finding of
this inner self, I find it escapes me.
Nisargadatta:
The idea 'it escapes me', where does it arise?
Questioner:
In the mind.
Nisargadatta:
And who knows the mind.
Questioner:
The witness of the mind knows the mind.
Nisargadatta:
Did anybody come to you and say: 'I am the witness of your
mind'?
Questioner:
Of course not. He would have been just another idea in the
mind.
Nisargadatta:
Then who is the witness?
Questioner:
I am.
Nisargadatta:
So, you know the witness because you are the witness. You
need not see the witness in front of
you.
Here again, to be is to know.
Questioner:
Yes, I see that I am the witness, the awareness itself. But
in which way does it profit me?
Nisargadatta:
What a question! What kind of profit do you expect? To know
what you are, is it not good
enough?
Questioner:
What are the uses of self-knowledge?
Nisargadatta:
It helps you to understand what you are not and keeps you
free from false ideas, desires and
actions.
Questioner:
If I am the witness only, what do right and wrong matter?
Nisargadatta:
What helps you to know yourself is right. What prevents, is
wrong. To know one's real self is
bliss,
to forget -- is sorrow.
Questioner:
Is the witness-consciousness the real Self?
Nisargadatta:
It is the reflection of the real in the mind (buddhi). The
real is beyond. The witness is the door
through
which you pass beyond.
Questioner:
What is the purpose of meditation?
Nisargadatta:
Seeing the false as the false, is meditation. This must go
on all the time.
Questioner:
We are told to meditate regularly.
Nisargadatta:
Deliberate daily exercise in discrimination between the true
and the false and renunciation of
the
false is meditation. There are many kinds of meditation to
begin with, but they all merge finally
into
one.
Questioner:
Please tell me which road to self-realisation is the
shortest.
Nisargadatta:
No way is short or long, but some people are more in earnest
and some are less. I can tell you
about
myself. I was a simple man, but I trusted my Guru. What he
told me to do, I did. He told me to
concentrate
on 'I am' -- I did. He told me that I am beyond all
perceivables and conceivables -- I
believed.
I gave him my heart and soul, my entire attention and the
whole of my spare time (I had to
work
to keep my family alive). As a result of faith and earnest
application, I realised my self
(swarupa)
within three years.
You
may choose any way that suits you; your earnestness will
determine the rate of progress.
Questioner:
No hint for me?
Nisargadatta:
Establish yourself firmly in the awareness of 'I am'. This
is the beginning and also the end of all
endeavour.