55.
Give up All and You Gain All
Questioner:
What is your state at the present moment?
Nisargadatta:
A state of non-experiencing. In it all experience is included
Questioner:
Can you enter into the mind and heart of another man and share his
experience?
Nisargadatta:
No. Such things require special training. I am like a dealer In
wheat. I know little about breads
and
cakes. Even the taste of a wheat-gruel I may not know. But about
the wheat grain I know all
and
well. I know the source of all experience. But the innumerable
particular forms experience can
take
I do not know. Nor do I need to know. From moment to moment, the
little I need to know to live
my
life, I somehow happen to know.
Questioner:
Your particular existence and my particular existence, do they
both exist in the mind of
Brahma?
Nisargadatta:
The universal is not aware of the particular. The existence as a
person is a personal matter. A
person
exists in time and space, has name and shape, beginning and end;
the universal includes all
persons
and the absolute is at the root of and beyond all.
Questioner:
I am not concerned with the totality. My personal consciousness
and your personal
consciousness
-- what is the link between the two?
Nisargadatta:
Between two dreamers what can be the link?
Questioner:
They may dream of each other.
Nisargadatta:
That is what people are doing. Everyone imagines 'others' and
seeks a link with them. The
seeker
is the link, there is none other.
Questioner:
Surely there must be something in common between the many points
of consciousness we are.
Nisargadatta:
Where are the many points? In your mind. You insist that your
world is independent of your
mind.
How can it be? Your desire to know other people's minds is due to
your not knowing your own
mind.
First know your own mind and you will find that the question of
other minds does not arise at
all,
for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only
link between the minds.
Being
is consciousness; 'I am' applies to all.
Questioner:
The Supreme Reality (Parabrahman) may be present in all of us. But
of what use is it to us?
Nisargadatta:
You are like a man who says: 'I need a place where to keep my
things, but of what use is space
to
me?' or 'I need milk, tea, coffee or soda, but for water I have no
use'. Don't you see that the
Supreme
Reality is what makes everything possible? But if you ask of what
use is it to you, I must
answer:
'None'. In matters of daily life the knower of the real has no
advantage: he may be at a
disadvantage
rather: being free from greed and fear, he does not protect
himself. The very idea of
profit
is foreign to him; he abhors accretions; his life is constant
divesting oneself, sharing, giving.
Questioner:
If there is no advantage in gaining the Supreme, then why take the
trouble?
Nisargadatta:
There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold
on to nothing, no trouble
arises.
The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater.
Give up all and you gain all.
Then
life becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an
inexhaustible source. In that light
the
world appears dimly like a dream.
Questioner:
If my world is merely a dream and you are a part of it, what can
you do for me? If the dream is
not
real, having no being, how can reality affect it?
Nisargadatta:
While it lasts, the dream has temporary being. It is your desire
to hold on to it, that creates the
problem.
Let go. Stop imagining that the dream is yours.
Questioner:
You seem to take for granted that there can be a dream without a
dreamer and that I identify
myself
with the dream of my own sweet will. But I am the dreamer and the
dream too. Who is to
stop
dreaming?
Nisargadatta:
Let the dream unroll itself to its very end. You cannot help it.
But you can look at the dream as a
dream,
refuse it the stamp of reality.
Questioner:
Here am I, sitting before you. I am dreaming and you are watching
me talking in my dream.
What
is the link between us?
Nisargadatta:
My intention to wake you up is the link. My heart wants you awake.
I see you suffer in your
dream
and I know that you must wake up to end your woes. When you see
your dream as dream,
you
wake up. But in your dream itself I am not interested. Enough for
me to know that you must
wake
up. You need not bring your dream to a definite conclusion, or
make it noble, or happy, or
beautiful;
all you need is to realise that you are dreaming. Stop imagining,
stop believing. See the
contradictions,
the incongruities, the falsehood and the sorrow of the human
state, the need to go
beyond.
Within the immensity of space floats a tiny atom of consciousness
and in it the entire
universe
is contained.
Questioner:
There are affections in the dream which seem real and everlasting.
Do they disappear on
waking
up?
Nisargadatta:
In dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you
are love itself, embracing
all.
Personal love, however intense and genuine, invariably binds; love
in freedom is love of all.
Questioner:
People come and go. One loves whom one meets, one cannot love all.
Nisargadatta:
When you are love itself, you are beyond time and numbers. In
loving one you love all, in loving
all,
you love each. One and all are not exclusive.
Questioner:
You say you are in a timeless state. Does it mean that past and
future are open to you? Did
you
meet Vashishta Muni, Rama's Guru?
Nisargadatta:
The question is in time and about time. Again you are asking me
about the contents of a dream.
Timelessness
is beyond the illusion of time, it is not an extension in time. He
who called himself
Vashishta
knew Vashishta. I am beyond all names and shapes. Vashishta is a
dream in your
dream.
How can I know him? You are too much concerned with past and
future. It is all due to your
longing
to continue, to protect yourself against extinction. And as you
want to continue, you want
others
to keep you company, hence your concern with their survival. But
what you call survival is
but
the survival of a dream. Death is preferable to it. There is a
chance of waking up.
Questioner:
You are aware of eternity, therefore you are not concerned with
survival.
Nisargadatta:
It is the other way round. Freedom from all desire is eternity.
All attachment implies fear, for all
things
are transient. And fear makes one a slave. This freedom from
attachment does not come
with
practice; it is natural, when one knows one's true being. Love
does not cling; clinging is not love.
Questioner:
So there is no way to gain detachment?
Nisargadatta:
There is nothing to gain. Abandon all imaginings and know yourself
as you are. Self-knowledge
is
detachment. All craving is due to a sense of insufficiency. When
you know that you lack nothing,
that
all there is, is you and yours, desire ceases.
Questioner:
To know myself must I practise awareness?
Nisargadatta:
There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, be yourself. To be
yourself, stop imagining
yourself
to be this or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't
disturb your mind with
seeking.
Questioner:
It will take much time if I Just wait for self-realisation.
Nisargadatta:
What have you to wait for when it is already here and now? You
have only to look and see.
Look
at your self, at your own being. You know that you are and you
like it. Abandon all imagining,
that
is all. Do not rely on time. Time is death. Who waits -- dies.
Life is now only. Do not talk to me
about
past and future -- they exist only in your mind.
Questioner:
You too will die.
Nisargadatta:
I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my
case. I am timeless being. I am
free
of desire or fear, because I do not remember the past, or imagine
the future. Where there are
no
names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With
desirelessness comes
timelessness.
I am safe, because what is not, cannot touch what is. You feel
unsafe, because you
imagine
danger. Of course, your body as such is complex and vulnerable and
needs protection. But
not
you. Once you realise your own unassailable being, you will be at
peace.
Questioner:
How can I find peace when the world suffers?
Nisargadatta:
The world suffers for very valid reasons. If you want to help the
world, you must be beyond the
need
of help. Then all your doing as well as not doing will help the
world most effectively.
Questioner:
How can non-action be of use where action is needed?
Nisargadatta:
Where action is needed, action happens. Man is not the actor. His
is to be aware of what is
going
on. His very presence is action. The window is the absence of the
wall and it gives air and
light
because it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all
imagination and effort, and the very
absence
of obstacles will cause reality to rush in. If you really want to
help a person, keep away. If
you
are emotionally committed to helping, you will fail to help. You
may be very busy and be very
pleased
with your charitable nature, but not much will be done. A man is
really helped when he is
no
longer in need of help. All else is just futility.
Questioner:
There is not enough time to sit and wait for help to happen. One
must do something.
Nisargadatta:
By all means -- do. But what you can do is limited; the self alone
is unlimited. Give limitlessly --
of
yourself. All else you can give in small measures only. You alone
are immeasurable. To help is
your
very nature. Even when you eat and drink you help your body. For
yourself you need nothing.
You
are pure giving, beginning-less, endless, inexhaustible. When you
see sorrow and suffering, be
with
it. Do not rush into activity. Neither learning nor action can
really help. Be with sorrow and lay
bare
its roots -- helping to understand is real help.
Questioner:
My death is nearing.
Nisargadatta:
Your body is short of time, not you. Time and space are in the
mind only. You are not bound.
Just
understand yourself -- that itself is eternity.