50.
Self-awareness is the Witness
Questioner:
You told me that I can be considered under three aspects: the
personal (vyakti), the super-personal (vyakta)
and
the impersonal (avyakta). The Avyakta is the universal and real
pure 'I'; the Vyakta is its reflection in
consciousness
as ‘I am'; the Vyakti is the totality of physical and vital
processes. Within the narrow
confines
of the present moment, the super-personal is aware of the person,
both in space and time;
not
only one person, but the long series of persons strung together on
the thread of karma. It is essentially
the
witness as well as the residue of the accumulated experiences, the
seat of memory, the connecting link
(sutratma).
It is man's character which life builds and shapes from birth to
birth. The universal is beyond all
name
and shape, beyond consciousness and character, pure
un-selfconscious being. Did I put down your
views rightly?
Nisargadatta:
On the level of the mind -- yes. Beyond the mental level not a
word applies.
Questioner:
I can understand that the person is a mental construct, a
collective noun for a set of memories
and
habits. But, he to whom the person happens, the witnessing centre,
is it mental too?
Nisargadatta:
The personal needs a base, a body to identify oneself with, just
as a colour needs a surface to
appear
on. The seeing of the colour is independent of the colour -- it is
the same whatever the
colour.
One needs an eye to see a colour. The colours are many, the eye is
single. The personal is
like
the light in the colour and also in the eye, yet simple, single,
indivisible and unperceivable,
except
in its manifestations. Not unknowable, but unperceivable,
un-objectival, inseparable. Neither
material
nor mental, neither objective nor subjective, it is the root of
matter and the source of
consciousness.
Beyond mere living and dying, it is the all-inclusive,
all-exclusive Life, in which birth
is
death and death is birth.
Questioner:
The Absolute or Life you talk about, is it real, or a mere theory
to cover up our ignorance?
Nisargadatta:
Both. To the mind, a theory; in itself -- a reality. It is reality
in its spontaneous and total rejection
of
the false. Just as light destroys darkness by its very presence,
so does the absolute destroy
imagination.
To see that all knowledge is a form of ignorance is itself a
movement of reality. The
witness
is not a person. The person comes into being when there is a basis
for it, an organism, a
body.
In it the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness
becomes self-awareness. When
there
is a self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to
witness, there is no
witnessing
either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of the person
that complicates. See that
there
is no such thing as a permanently separate person and all becomes
clear. Awareness -- mind
--
matter -- they are one reality in its two aspects as immovable and
movable, and the three
attributes
of inertia, energy and harmony.
Questioner:
What comes first: consciousness or awareness?
Nisargadatta:
Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object
changes all the time. In
consciousness
there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless,
here and now.
Questioner:
There is suffering and bloodshed in East Pakistan at the present
moment. How do you look at
it?
How does it appear to you, how do you react to it?
Nisargadatta:
In pure consciousness nothing ever happens.
Questioner:
Please come down from these metaphysical heights! Of what use is
it to a suffering man to be
told
that nobody is aware of his suffering but himself? To relegate
everything to illusion is insult
added
to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a fact and his
suffering is a fact. Please, do not
analyse
them out of existence! You are reading newspapers, you hear people
talking about it. You
cannot
plead ignorance. Now, what is your attitude to what is happening?
Nisargadatta:
No attitude. Nothing is happening.
Questioner:
Any day there may be a riot right in front of you, perhaps people
killing each other. Surely you
cannot
say: nothing is happening and remain aloof.
Nisargadatta:
I never talked of remaining aloof. You could as well see me
jumping into the fray to save
somebody
and getting killed. Yet to me nothing happened.
Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in ruins, some
are intact. But can you speak of
the
space as ruined or intact? It is only the structure that suffered
and the people who happened to
live
in it. Nothing happened to space itself. Similarly, nothing
happens to life when forms break
down
and names are wiped out. The goldsmith melts down old ornaments to
make new. Sometimes
a
good piece goes with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for he
knows that no gold is lost.
Questioner:
It is not death that I rebel against. It is the manner of dying.
Nisargadatta:
Death is natural, the manner of dying is man-made. Separateness
causes fear and aggression,
which
again cause violence. Do away with man-made separations and all
this horror of people
killing
each other will surely end. But in reality there is no killing and
no dying. The real does not die,
the
unreal never lived. Set your mind right and all will be right.
When you know that the world is one,
that
humanity is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you
must attend to the way you feel,
think
and live. Unless there is order in yourself, there can be no order
in the world.
In
reality nothing happens. Onto the screen of the mind destiny
forever projects its pictures,
memories
of former projections and thus illusion constantly renews itself.
The pictures come and go
--
light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and disregard the
picture.
Questioner:
What a callous way of looking at things! People are killing and
getting killed and here you talk of
pictures.
Nisargadatta:
By all means go and get killed yourself -- if that is what you
think you should do. Or even go and
kill,
if you take it to be your duty. But that is not the way to end the
evil. Evil is the stench of a mind
that
is diseased. Heal your mind and it will cease to project
distorted, ugly pictures.
Questioner:
What you say I understand, but emotionally I cannot accept it.
This merely idealistic view of life
repels
me deeply. I just cannot think myself to be permanently in a state
of dream.
Nisargadatta:
How can anybody be permanently in a state caused by an impermanent
body? The
misunderstanding
is based on your idea that you are the body. Examine the idea, see
its inherent
contradictions,
realise that your present existence is like a shower of sparks,
each spark lasting a
second
and the shower itself -- a minute or two. Surely a thing of which
the beginning is the end,
can
have no middle. Respect your terms. Reality cannot be momentary.
It is timeless, but
timelessness
is not duration.
Questioner:
I admit that the world in which I live is not the real world. But
there is a real world, of which I see
a
distorted picture. The distortion may be due to some blemish in my
body or mind. But when you
say
there is no real world, only a dream world in my mind, I just
cannot take it. I wish I could believe
that
all horrors of existence are due to my having a body. Suicide
would be the way out.
Nisargadatta:
As long as you pay attention to ideas, your own or of others, you
will be in trouble. But if you
disregard
all teachings, all books, anything out into words and dive deeply
within yourself and find
yourself,
this alone will solve all your problems and leave you in full
mastery of every situation,
because
you will not be dominated by your ideas about the situation. Take
an example. You are in
the
company of an attractive woman. You get ideas about her and this
creates a sexual situation. A
problem
is created and you start looking for books on continence, or
enjoyment. Were you a baby,
both
of you could be naked and together without any problem arising.
Just stop thinking you are the
bodies
and the problems of love and sex will lose their meaning. With all
sense of limitation gone,
fear,
pain and the search for pleasure -- all cease. Only awareness
remains.