47.
Watch Your Mind
Questioner:
In one's search for the essential, one soon realises one's
inadequacy and the need for
a
guide or a teacher. This implies a certain discipline for you are
expected to trust your guide and
follow
implicitly his advice and instruction. Yet the social urgencies
and pressures are so great,
personal
desires and fears so powerful, that the simplicity of mind and
will, essential in obedience,
are
not forthcoming. How to strike a balance between the need for a
Guru and the difficulty in
obeying
him implicitly?
Nisargadatta:
What is done under pressure of society and circumstances does not
matter much, for it is
mostly
mechanical, mere reacting to impacts. It is enough to watch
oneself dispassionately to
isolate
oneself completely from what is going on. What has been done
without minding, blindly, may
add
to one's karma (destiny), otherwise it hardly matters. The Guru
demands one thing only; clarity
and
intensity of purpose, a sense of responsibility for oneself. The
very reality of the world must be
questioned.
Who is the Guru, after all? He who knows the state in which there
is neither the world
nor
the thought of it, he is the Supreme Teacher. To find him means to
reach the state in which
imagination
is no longer taken for reality. Please, understand that the Guru
stands for reality, for
truth,
for what is. He is a realist in the highest sense of the term. He
cannot and shall not come to
terms
with the mind and its delusions. He comes to take you to the real;
don't expect him to do
anything
else.
The
Guru you have in mind, one who gives you information and
instructions, is not the real Guru.
The
real Guru is he who knows the real, beyond the glamour of
appearances. To him your
questions
about obedience and discipline do not make sense, for in his eyes
the person you take
yourself
to be does not exist, your questions are about a non-existing
person. What exists for you
does
not exist for him. What you take for granted, he denies
absolutely. He wants you to see
yourself
as he sees you. Then you will not need a Guru to obey and follow,
for you will obey and
follow
your own reality. realise that whatever you think yourself to be
is just a stream of events; that
while
all happens, comes and goes, you alone are , the changeless among
the changeful, the self-
evident
among the inferred. Separate the observed from the observer and
abandon false
identifications.
Questioner:
In order to find the reality, one should discard all that stands
in the way. On the other hand, the
need
to survive within a given society compels one to do and endure
many things. Does one need
to
abandon one's profession and one's social standing in order to
find reality?
Nisargadatta:
Do your work. When you have a moment free, look within. What is
important is not to miss the
opportunity
when it presents itself. If you are earnest you will use your
leisure fully. That is enough.
Questioner:
In my search for the essential and discarding the unessential, is
there any scope for creative
living?
For instance, I love painting. Will it help me if I give my
leisure hours to painting?
Nisargadatta:
Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have
moments of complete
inner
peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss
it, you miss the entire thing. If
you
do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else.
Your
difficulty lies in your wanting reality and being afraid of it at
the same time. You are afraid of it
because
you do not know it. The familiar things are known, you feel secure
with them. The unknown
is
uncertain and therefore dangerous. But to know reality is to be in
harmony with it. And in harmony
there
is no place for fear.
An
infant knows its body, but not the body-based distinctions. It is
just conscious and happy. After
all,
that was the purpose for which it was born. The pleasure to be is
the simplest form of self-love,
which
later grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing
standing between the body and
the
self. The constant noise of the psychic life is absent. In deep
silence the self contemplates the
body.
It is like the white paper on which nothing is written yet. Be
like that infant, instead of trying to
be
this or that, be happy to be. You will be a fully awakened witness
of the field of consciousness.
But
there should be no feelings and ideas to stand between you and the
field.
Questioner:
To be content with mere being seems to be a most selfish way of
passing time.
Nisargadatta:
A most worthy way of being selfish! By all means be selfish by
foregoing everything but the Self.
When
you love the Self and nothing else, you go beyond the selfish and
the unselfish. All
distinctions
lose their meaning. Love of one and love of all merge together in
love, pure and simple,
addressed
to none, denied to none. Stay in that love, go deeper and deeper
into it, investigate
yourself
and love the investigation and you will solve not only your own
problems but also the
problems
of humanity. You will know what to do. Do not ask superficial
questions; apply yourself to
fundamentals,
to the very roots of your being.
Questioner:
Is there a way for me to speed up my self-realisation?
Nisargadatta:
Of course there is.
Questioner:
Who will do this speeding up? Will you do it for me?
Nisargadatta:
Neither you will do it, nor me. It will just happen.
Questioner:
My very coming here has proved it. Is this speeding up due to holy
company? When I left last
time,
I hoped to come back. And I did! Now I am desperate that so soon I
have to leave for England.
Nisargadatta:
You are like a newly born child. It was there before but not
conscious of its being. At its birth a
world
arose in it, and with it the consciousness of being. Now you have
just to grow in
consciousness,
that is all. The child is the king of the world -- when it grows
up, it takes charge of its
kingdom.
Imagine that in its infancy it fell seriously ill and the
physician cured it. Does it mean that
the
young king owes his kingdom to the physician? Only, perhaps as one
of the contributing factors.
There
were so many others; all contributed. But the main factor, the
most crucial, was the fact of
being
born the son of a king. Similarly, the Guru may help. But the main
thing that helps is to have
reality
within. It will assert itself. Your coming here definitely helped
you. It is not the only thing that
is
going to help you. The main thing is your own being. Your very
earnestness testifies to it.
Questioner:
Does my pursuing a vocation deny my earnestness?
Nisargadatta:
I told you already. As long as you allow yourself an abundance of
moments of peace, you can
safely
practice your most honourable profession. These moments of inner
quiet will burn out all
obstacles
without fail. Don't doubt its efficacy. Try it.
Questioner:
But, I did try!
Nisargadatta:
Never faithfully, never steadily. Otherwise you would not be
asking such questions. You are
asking
because you are not sure of yourself. And you are not sure of
yourself because you never
paid
attention to yourself, only to your experiences. Be interested in
yourself beyond all experience,
be
with yourself, love yourself; the ultimate security is found only
in self-knowledge. The main thing
is
earnestness. Be honest with yourself and nothing will betray you.
Virtues and powers are mere
tokens
for children to play with. They are useful in the world, but do
not take you out of it. To go
beyond,
you need alert immobility, quiet attention.
Questioner:
What then becomes of one's physical being?
Nisargadatta:
As long as you are healthy, you live on.
Questioner:
This life of inner immobility, will it not affect one's health?
Nisargadatta:
Your body is food transformed. As your food, gross and subtle, so
will be your health.
Questioner:
And what happens to the sex instinct? How can it be controlled?
Nisargadatta:
Sex is an acquired habit. Go beyond. As long as your focus is on
the body, you will remain in
the
clutches of food and sex, fear and death. Find yourself and be
free.