19.
Reality lies in Objectivity
Questioner:
I am a painter and I earn by painting pictures. Has it any
value from the spiritual point
of
view?
Nisargadatta:
When you paint what do you think about?
Questioner:
When I paint, there is only the painting and myself.
Nisargadatta:
What are you doing there?
Questioner:
I paint.
Nisargadatta:
No, you don't. You see the painting going on. You are watching
only, all else happens.
Questioner:
The picture is painting itself? Or, is there some deeper 'me',
or some god who is painting?
Nisargadatta:
Consciousness itself is the greatest painter. The entire world
is a Picture.
Questioner:
Who painted the picture of the world?
Nisargadatta:
The painter is in the Picture.
Questioner:
The picture is in the mind of the painter and the painter is
in the picture, which is in the mind of
the
painter who is in the picture! Is not this infinity of states
and dimensions absurd? The moment
we
talk of picture in the mind, which itself is in the picture,
we come to an endless succession of
witnesses,
the higher witness witnessing the lower. It is like standing
between two mirrors and
wondering
at the crowd!
Nisargadatta:
Quite right, you alone and the double mirror are there.
Between the two, your forms and names
are
numberless.
Questioner:
How do you look at the world?
Nisargadatta:
I see a painter painting a picture. The picture I call the
world, the painter I call God. I am neither.
I
do not create, nor am I created. I contain all, nothing
contains me.
Questioner:
When I see a tree, a face, a sunset, the picture is perfect.
When I close my eyes, the image in
my
mind is faint and hazy. If it is my mind that projects the
picture, why need I open my eyes to see
a
lovely flower and with eyes closed I see it vaguely?
Nisargadatta:
It is because your outer eyes are better than your inner eyes.
Your mind is all turned outward.
As
you learn to watch your mental world, you will find it even
more colourful and perfect than what
the
body can provide. Of course, you will need some training. But
why argue? You imagine that the
picture
must come from the painter who actually painted it. All the
time you look for origins and
causes.
Causality is in the mind, only; memory gives the illusion of
continuity and repetitiveness
creates
the idea of causality. When things repeatedly happen together,
we tend to see a causal link
between
them. It creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a
necessity.
Questioner:
You have just said that the world is made by God.
Nisargadatta:
Remember that language is an instrument of the mind; It is
made by the mind, for the mind.
Once
you admit a cause, then God is the ultimate cause and the
world the effect. They are different,
but
not separate.
Questioner:
People talk of seeing God.
Nisargadatta:
When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God,
apart from the world. Beyond
the
world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the
world, which is God is the tiny
little
spark: 'I am', apparently so small, yet the first and the last
in every act of knowing and loving.
Questioner:
Must I see the world to see God?
Nisargadatta:
How else? No world, no God.
Questioner:
What remains?
Nisargadatta:
You remain as pure being.
Questioner:
And what becomes of the world and of God?
Nisargadatta:
Pure being (avyakta).
Questioner:
Is it the same as the Great Expanse (paramakash)?
Nisargadatta:
You may call it so. Words do not matter, for they do not reach
it. They turn back in utter
negation.
Questioner:
How can I see the world as God? What does it mean to see the
world as God?
Nisargadatta:
It is like entering a dark room. You see nothing -- you may
touch, but you do not see -- no
colours,
no outlines. The window opens and the room is flooded with
light. Colours and shapes
come
into being. The window is the giver of light, but not the
source of it. The sun is the source.
Similarly,
matter is like the dark room; consciousness -- the window --
flooding matter with
sensations
and perceptions, and the Supreme is the sun the source both of
matter and of light. The
window
may be closed, or open, the sun shines all the time. It makes
all the difference to the room,
but
none to the sun. Yet all this is secondary to the tiny little
thing which is the 'I am'. Without the 'I
am'
there is nothing. All knowledge is about the 'I am'. False
ideas about this 'I am' lead to bondage,
right
knowledge leads to freedom and happiness.
Questioner:
Is 'I am' and 'there is' the same?
Nisargadatta:
'I am' denotes the inner, 'there is' -- the outer. Both are
based on the sense of being.
Questioner:
Is it the same as the experience of existence?
Nisargadatta:
To exist means to be something, a thing, a feeling, a thought,
an idea. All existence is particular.
Only
being is universal, in the sense that every being is
compatible with every other being.
Existences
clash, being -- never. Existence means becoming, change, birth
and death and birth
again,
while in being there is silent peace.
Questioner:
If I create the world, why have I made it bad?
Nisargadatta:
Everyone lives in his own world. Not all the worlds are
equally good or bad.
Questioner:
What determines the difference?
Nisargadatta:
The mind that projects the world, colours it its own way. When
you meet a man, he is a
stranger.
When you marry him, he becomes your own self. When you
quarrel, he becomes your
enemy.
It is your mind's attitude that determines what he is to you.
Questioner:
I can see that my world is subjective. Does it make it also
illusory?
Nisargadatta:
It is illusory as long as it is subjective and to that extent
only. Reality lies in objectivity.
Questioner:
What does objectivity mean? You said the world is subjective
and now you talk of objectivity. Is
not
everything subjective?
Nisargadatta:
Everything is subjective, but the real is objective.
Questioner:
In what sense?
Nisargadatta:
It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and
fears, likes and dislikes. All is
seen
as it is.
Questioner:
Is it what you call the fourth state (turiya)?
Nisargadatta:
Call it as you like. It is solid, steady, changeless,
beginningless and endless, ever new, ever
fresh.
Questioner:
How is it reached?
Nisargadatta:
Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.