43.
Ignorance can be Recognised, not Jnana
Questioner:
From year to year your teaching remains the same. There seems to
be no progress in
what
you tell us.
Nisargadatta:
In a hospital the sick are treated and get well. The treatment is
routine, with hardly any change,
but
there is nothing monotonous about health. My teaching may be
routine, but the fruit of it
is
new from man to man.
Questioner:
What is realisation? Who is a realised man? By what is the jnani
recognised?
Nisargadatta:
There are no distinctive marks of jnana . Only ignorance can be
recognised, not jnana . Nor does
a
jnani claim to be something special. AII those who proclaim their
own greatness and uniqueness
are
not jnanis . They are mistaking some unusual development for
realisation. The jnani shows no
tendency
to proclaim himself to be a jnani . He considers himself to be
perfectly normal, true to his
real
nature. Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent, omniscient and
omnipotent deity is a clear
sign
of ignorance.
Questioner:
Can the jnani convey his experience to the ignorant? Can jnana be
transmitted from one man
to
another?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, it can. The words of a jnani have the power of dispelling
ignorance and darkness in the
mind.
It is not the words that matter, but the power behind them.
Questioner:
What is that power?
Nisargadatta:
The power of conviction, based on personal realisation, on one's
own direct experience.
Questioner:
Some realised people say that knowledge must be won, not got.
Another can only teach, but
the
learning is one's own.
Nisargadatta:
It comes to the same.
Questioner:
There are many who have practiced Yoga for years and years without
any result. What may be
the
cause of their failure?
Nisargadatta:
Some are addicted to trances, with their consciousness in
abeyance. Without full consciousness
what
progress can there be?
Questioner:
Many are practicing samadhis (states of rapturous absorption). In
samadhis consciousness is
quite
intense, yet they do not result in anything.
Nisargadatta:
What results do you expect? And why should jnana be the result of
anything? One thing leads
to
another, but jnana is not a thing to be bound by causes and
results. It is beyond causality
altogether.
It is abidance in the self. The Yogi comes to know many wonders,
but of the self he
remains
ignorant. The jnani may look and feel quite ordinary, but the self
he knows well.
Questioner:
There are many who strive for self-knowledge earnestly, but with
scant results. What may be
the
cause of it?
Nisargadatta:
They have not investigated the sources of knowledge sufficiently,
their sensations, feelings and
thoughts
they do not know well enough. This may be one cause of delay. The
other: some desires
may
still be alive.
Questioner:
Ups and downs in sadhana are inevitable. Yet the earnest seeker
plods on in spite of all. What
can
the jnani do for such a seeker?
Nisargadatta:
If the seeker is earnest, the light can be given. The light is for
all and always there, but the
seekers
are few, and among those few, those who are ready are very rare.
Ripeness of heart and
mind
is indispensable.
Questioner:
Did you get your own realisation through effort or by the grace of
your Guru?
Nisargadatta:
His was the teaching and mine was the trust. My confidence in him
made me accept his words
as
true, go deep into them, live them, and that is how I came to
realise what I am. The Guru's
person
and words made me trust him and my trust made them fruitful.
Questioner:
But can a Guru give realisation without words, without trust, just
like this, without any
preparation?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, one can, but where is the taker? You see, I was so attuned to
my Guru, so completely
trusting
him. there was so little of resistance in me, that it all happened
easily and quickly. But not
everybody
is so fortunate. Laziness and restlessness often stand in the way
and until they are seen
and
removed, the progress is slow. All those who have realised on the
spot, by mere touch, look or
thought,
have been ripe for it. But such are very few. The majority needs
some time for ripening.
Sadhana
is accelerated ripening.
Questioner:
What makes one ripe? What is the ripening factor?
Nisargadatta:
Earnestness of course, one must be really anxious. After all, the
realised man is the most
earnest
man. Whatever he does, he does it completely, without limitations
and reservations.
Integrity
will take you to reality.
Questioner:
Do you love the world?
Nisargadatta:
When you are hurt, you cry. Why? Because you love yourself. Don't
bottle up your love by
limiting
it to the body, keep it open. It will be then the love for all.
When all the false self-
identifications
are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love. Get rid of
all ideas about
yourself,
even of the idea that you are God. No self-definition is valid.
Questioner:
I am tired of promises. I am tired of sadhanas , which take all my
time and energy and bring
nothing.
I want reality here and now. Can I have it?
Nisargadatta:
Of course you can, provided you are really fed up with everything,
including your sadhanas.
When
you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want
nothing, seek nothing,
expect
nothing then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and
unexpected!
Questioner:
If a man engrossed in family life and in the affairs of the world
does his sadhana strictly as
prescribed
by his scriptures, will he get results?
Nisargadatta:
Results he will get, but he will be wrapped up in them like in a
cocoon.
Questioner:
So many saints say that when you are ripe and ready, you will
realise. Their words may be true,
but
they are of little use. There must be a way out, independent of
ripening which needs time, of
sadhana
which needs effort.
Nisargadatta:
Don't call it a way; it is more a kind of skill. It is not even
that. Stay open and quiet, that is all.
What
you seek is so near you, that there is no place for a way.
Questioner:
There are so many ignorant people in the world and so few jnanis .
What may be the cause of it?
Nisargadatta:
Don't concern yourself with others, take care of yourself. You
know that you are. Don't burden
yourself
with names, just be. Any name or shape you give yourself obscures
your real nature.
Questioner:
Why should seeking end before one can realise?
Nisargadatta:
The desire for truth is the highest of all desires, yet, it is
still a desire. All desires must be given
up
to the real to be. Remember that you are. This is your working
capital. Rotate it and there will be
much
profit.
Questioner:
Why should there be seeking at all.
Nisargadatta:
Life is seeking, one cannot help seeking. When all search ceases,
it is the Supreme State.
Questioner:
Why does the Supreme State come and go?
Nisargadatta:
It neither comes nor goes. It is.
Questioner:
Do you speak from your own experience?
Nisargadatta:
Of course. It is a timeless state, ever present.
Questioner:
With me it comes and goes, with you it does not. Why this
difference?
Nisargadatta:
Maybe because I have no desires. Or you do not desire the Supreme
strongly enough. You
must
feel desperate when your mind is out of touch.
Questioner:
All my life I was striving and achieved so little. I was reading,
I was listening -- all in vain.
Nisargadatta:
Listening and reading became a habit with you.
Questioner:
I gave it up too. I do not read nowadays.
Nisargadatta:
What you gave up is of no importance now. What have you not given
up?. Find that out and
give
up that. Sadhana is a search for what to give up. Empty yourself
completely.
Questioner:
How can a fool desire wisdom? One needs to know the object of
desire, to desire it. When the
Supreme
is not known, how can it be desired?
Nisargadatta:
Man naturally ripens and becomes ready for realisation.
Questioner:
But what is the ripening factor?
Nisargadatta:
Self-remembrance, awareness of 'l am' ripens him powerfully and
speedily. Give up all ideas
about
yourself and simply be.
Questioner:
I am tired of all the ways and means and skills and tricks, of all
these mental acrobatics. Is
there
a way to perceive reality directly and immediately?
Nisargadatta:
Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Do this one
thing thoroughly. That is all.
Questioner:
When I was younger, I had strange experiences, short but
memorable, of being nothing, just
nothing,
yet fully conscious. But the danger is that one has the desire to
recreate from memory the
moments
that have passed.
Nisargadatta:
This is all imagination. In the light of consciousness all sorts
of things happen and one need not
give
special importance to any. The sight of a flower is as marvellous
as the vision of God. Let them
be.
Why remember them and then make memory into a problem? Be bland
about them; do not
divide
them into high and low, inner and outer, lasting and transient. Go
beyond, go back to the
source,
go to the self that is the same whatever happens. Your weakness is
due to your conviction
that
you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever
recreated in you and by you. See
everything
as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being.
You will find that in
that
light there is love and infinite energy.
Questioner:
If I am that light, why do I not know it?
Nisargadatta:
To know, you need a knowing mind, a mind capable of knowing. But
your mind is ever on the
run,
never still, never fully reflecting. How can you see the moon in
all her glory when the eye is
clouded
with disease?
Questioner:
Can we say that while the sun is the cause of the shadow one
cannot see the sun in the
shadow.
One must turn round.
Nisargadatta:
Again you have introduced the trinity of the sun, the body and
shadow. There is no such division
in
reality. What I am talking about has nothing to do with dualities
and trinities. Don't mentalise and
verbalise.
Just see and be.
Questioner:
Must I see, to be?
Nisargadatta:
See what you are. Don't ask others, don't let others tell you
about yourself. Look within and see.
All
the teacher can tell you is only this. There is no need of going
from one to another. The same
water
is in all the wells. You just draw from the nearest. In my case
the water is within me and I am
the
water.