30.
You are Free NOW
Questioner:
There are so many theories about the nature of man and universe. The
creation
theory,
the illusion theory, the dream theory -- any number of them. Which
is true?
Nisargadatta:
All are true, all are false. You can pick up whichever you like
best.
Questioner:
You seem to favour the dream theory.
Nisargadatta:
These are all ways of putting words together. Some favour one way,
some favour another.
Theories
are neither right nor wrong. They are attempts at explaining the
inexplicable. It is not the
theory
that matters, but the way it is being tested. It is the testing of
the theory that makes it fruitful.
Experiment
with any theory you like -- if you are truly earnest and honest, the
attainment of reality
will
be yours. As a living being you are caught in an untenable and
painful situation and you are
seeking
a way out. You are being offered several plans of your prison, none
quite true. But they all
are
of some value, only if you are in dead earnest. It is the
earnestness that liberates and not the
theory.
Questioner:
Theory may be misleading and earnestness -- blind.
Nisargadatta:
Your sincerity will guide you. Devotion to the goal of freedom and
perfection will make you
abandon
all theories and systems and live by wisdom, intelligence and active
love. Theories may be
good
as starting points, but must be abandoned, the sooner -- the better.
Questioner:
There is a Yogi who says that for realisation the eightfold Yoga is
not necessary; that will-power
alone
will do. It is enough to concentrate on the goal with full
confidence in the power of pure will to
obtain
effortlessly and quickly what others take decades to achieve.
Nisargadatta:
Concentration, full confidence, pure will! With such assets no
wonder one attains in no time.
This
Yoga of will is all right for the mature seeker, who has shed all
desires but one. After all, what
is
will but steadiness of heart and mind. Given such steadfastness all
can be achieved.
Questioner:
I feel the Yogi did not mean mere steadiness of purpose, resulting
in ceaseless pursuit and
application.
He meant that with will fixed on the goal no pursuit or application
are needed. The mere
fact
of willing attracts its object.
Nisargadatta:
Whatever name you give it: will, or steady purpose, or
one-pointedness of the mind, you come
back
to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When you are in dead earnest,
you bend every incident,
every
second of your life to your purpose. You do not waste time and
energy on other things. You
are
totally dedicated, call it will, or love, or plain honesty. We are
complex beings, at war within and
without.
We contradict ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of
yesterday. No wonder we
are
stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot of difference.
Questioner:
What is more powerful, desire or destiny?
Nisargadatta:
Desire shapes destiny.
Questioner:
And destiny shapes desire. My desires are conditioned by heredity
and circumstances, by
opportunities
and accidents, by what we call destiny.
Nisargadatta:
Yes, you may say so.
Questioner:
At what point am I free to desire what I want to desire?
Nisargadatta:
You are free now. What is it that you want to desire? Desire it.
Questioner:
Of course I am free to desire, but I am not free to act on my
desire. Other urges will lead me
astray.
My desire is not strong enough, even if it has my approval. Other
desires, which I
disapprove
of are stronger.
Nisargadatta:
Maybe you are deceiving yourself. Maybe you are giving expression to
your real desires and the
ones
you approve of are kept on the surface for the sake of
respectability.
Questioner:
It may be as you say, but this is another theory. The fact is that I
do not feel free to desire what
I
think I should, and when I seem to desire rightly, I do not act
accordingly.
Nisargadatta:
It is all due to weakness of the mind and disintegration of the
brain. Collect and strengthen your
mind
and you will find that your thoughts and feelings, words and actions
will align themselves in
the
direction of your will.
Questioner:
Again a counsel of perfection! To integrate and strengthen the mind
is not an easy task! How
does
one begin?
Nisargadatta:
You can start only from where you are. You are here and now, you
cannot get out of here and
now.
Questioner:
But what can I do here and now?
Nisargadatta:
You can be aware of your being -- here and now.
Questioner:
That is all?
Nisargadatta:
That is all. There is nothing more to it.
Questioner:
All my waking and dreaming I am conscious of myself. It does not
help me much.
Nisargadatta:
You were aware of thinking, feeling, doing. You were not aware of
your being.
Questioner:
What is the new factor you want me to bring in?
Nisargadatta:
The attitude of pure witnessing, of watching the events without
taking part in them.
Questioner:
What will it do to me?
Nisargadatta:
Weak-mindedness is due to lack of intelligence, of understanding,
which again is the result of
non-awareness.
By striving for awareness you bring your mind together and
strengthen it.
Questioner:
I may be fully aware of what is going on, and yet quite unable to
influence it in any way.
Nisargadatta:
You are mistaken. 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 simple. To control
yourself
-- know yourself.
Questioner:
Maybe, I can come to control myself, but shall I be able to deal
with the chaos in the world?
Nisargadatta:
There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind
creates. It is self-created in
the
sense that at its very centre is the false idea of oneself as a
thing different and separate from
other
things. In reality you are not a thing, nor separate. You are the
infinite potentiality; the
inexhaustible
possibility. Because you are, all can be. The universe is but a
partial manifestation of
your
limitless capacity to become.
Questioner:
I find that I am totally motivated by desire for pleasure and fear
of pain. However noble my
desire
and justified my fear, pleasure and pain are the two poles between
which my life oscillates.
Nisargadatta:
Go to the source of both pain and pleasure, of desire and fear.
Observe, investigate, try to
understand.
Questioner:
Desire and fear both are feelings caused by physical or mental
factors. They are there, easily
observable.
But why are they there? Why do l desire pleasure and fear pain?
Nisargadatta:
Pleasure and pain are states of mind. As long as you think you are
the mind, or rather, the body-
mind,
you are bound to raise such questions.
Questioner:
And when I realise that I am not the body, shall I be free from
desire and fear?
Nisargadatta:
As long as there is a body and a mind to protect the body,
attractions and repulsions will
operate.
They will be there, out in the field of events, but will not concern
you. The focus of your
attention
will be elsewhere. You will not be distracted.
Questioner:
Still they will be there. Will one never be completely free?
Nisargadatta:
You are completely free even now. What you call destiny (karma) is
but the result of your own
will
to live. How strong is this will you can judge by the universal
horror of death.
Questioner:
People die willingly quite often.
Nisargadatta:
Only when the alternative is worse than death. But such readiness to
die flows from the same
source
as the will to live, a source deeper even than life itself. To be a
living being is not the
ultimate
state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is
neither being nor non-
being,
neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness,
beyond the limitations of space
and
time. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned,
death loses its terror, it
becomes
a part of living.