61.
Matter is Consciousness Itself
Questioner:
I was lucky to have holy company all my life. Is it enough for
self-realisation?
Nisargadatta:
It depends what you make of it.
Questioner:
I was told that the liberating action of satsang is automatic. Just
like a river carries one to the
estuary,
so the subtle and silent influence of good people will take me to
reality.
Nisargadatta:
It will take you to the river, but the crossing is your own. Freedom
cannot be gained nor kept
without
will-to-freedom. You must strive for liberation; the least you can do
is uncover and remove
the
obstacles diligently. If you want peace you must strive for it. You
will not get peace just by
keeping
quiet.
Questioner:
A child just grows. He does not make plans for growth, nor has he a
pattern; nor does he grow
by
fragments, a hand here a leg there; he grows integrally and
unconsciously.
Nisargadatta:
Because he is free of imagination. You can also grow like this, but
you must not indulge in
forecasts
and plans, born of memory and anticipation. It is one of the
peculiarities of a jnani
that he is not concerned with the future. Your concern with future is
due to fear of pain and
desire
for pleasure, to the jnani all is bliss: he is happy with whatever
comes.
Questioner:
Surely, there are many things that would make even a jnani miserable
Nisargadatta:
A jnani may meet with difficulties, but they do not make him suffer.
Bringing up a child from birth
to
maturity may seem a hard task, but to a mother the memories of
hardships are a joy. There is
nothing
wrong with the world. What is wrong is in the way you look at it. It
is your own imagination
that
misleads you. Without imagination there is no world. Your conviction
that you are conscious of
a
world is the world. The world you perceive is made of consciousness;
what you call matter is
consciousness
Itself. You are the space (akash) in which it moves, the time in which
it lasts, the
love
that gives it life. Cut off imagination and attachment and what
remains?
Questioner:
The world remains. I remain.
Nisargadatta:
Yes. But how different it is when you can see it as it is, not through
the screen of desire and fear.
Questioner:
What for are all these distinctions -- reality and illusion, wisdom
and ignorance, saint and
sinner?
Everyone is in search of happiness, everyone strives desperately;
everyone is a Yogi and
his
life a school of wisdom. Each learns his own way the lessons he needs.
Society approves of
some,
disapproves of others; there are no rules that apply everywhere and
for all time.
Nisargadatta:
In my world love is the only law. I do not ask for love, I give it.
Such is my nature.
Questioner:
I see you living your life according to a pattern. You run a
meditation class in the morning,
lecture
and have discussions regularly; twice daily there is worship (puja)
and religious singing
(bhajan)
in the evening. You seem to adhere to the routine scrupulously.
Nisargadatta:
The worship and the singing are as I found them and I saw no reason to
interfere. The general
routine
is according to the wishes of the people with whom I happen to live or
who come to listen.
They
are working people, with many obligations and the timings are for
their convenience. Some
repetitive
routine is inevitable. Even animals and plants have their time-tables.
Questioner:
Yes, we see a regular sequence in all life. Who maintains the order?
Is there an inner ruler,
who
lays down laws and enforces order?
Nisargadatta:
Everything moves according to its nature. Where is the need of a
policeman? Every action
creates
a reaction, which balances and neutralises the action. Everything
happens, but there is a
continuous
cancelling out, and in the end it is as if nothing happened.
Questioner:
Do not console me with final harmonies. The accounts tally, but the
loss is mine.
Nisargadatta:
Wait and see. You may end up with a profit good enough to justify the
outlays.
Questioner:
There is a long life behind me and I often wonder whether its many
events took place by
accident,
or there was a plan. Was there a pattern laid down before I was born
by which I had to live
my
life? If yes, who made the plans and who enforced them? Could there be
deviations and
mistakes?
Some say destiny is immutable and every second of life is
predetermined; others say
that
pure accident decides everything.
Nisargadatta:
You can have it as you like. You can distinguish in your life a
pattern or see merely a chain of
accidents.
Explanations are meant to please the mind. They need not be true.
Reality is indefinable
and
indescribable.
Questioner:
Sir, you are escaping my question! I want to know how you look at it.
Wherever we look we find
structure
of unbelievable intelligence and beauty. How can I believe that the
universe is formless
and
chaotic? Your world, the world in which you live, may be formless, but
it need not be chaotic.
Nisargadatta:
The objective universe has structure, is orderly and beautiful. Nobody
can deny it. But structure
and
pattern, imply constraint and compulsion. My world is absolutely free;
everything in it is self-
determined.
Therefore I keep on saying that all happens by itself. There is order
in my world too, but
it
is not Imposed from outside. It comes spontaneously and immediately,
because of its
timelessness.
Perfection is not in the future. It is now.
Questioner:
Does your world affect mine?
Nisargadatta:
At one point only -- at the point of the now. It gives it momentary
being, a fleeting sense of
reality.
In full awareness the contact is established. It needs effortless,
un-self-conscious attention.
Questioner:
Is not attention an attitude of mind?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, when the mind is eager for reality, it gives attention. There is
nothing wrong with your
world,
it is your thinking yourself to be separate from it that creates
disorder. Selfishness is the
source
of all evil.
Questioner:
I am coming back to my question. Before I was born, did my inner self
decide the details of my
life,
or was it entirely accidental and at the mercy of heredity and
circumstances?
Nisargadatta:
Those who claim to have selected their father and mother and decided
how they are going to
live
their next life may know for themselves. I know for myself. I was
never born.
Questioner:
I see you sitting in front of me and replying my questions.
Nisargadatta:
You see the body only which, of course, was born and will die.
Questioner:
It is the life-story of thus body-mind that I am interested in. Was it
laid down by you or
somebody
else, or did it happen accidentally?
Nisargadatta:
There is a catch in your very question. I make no distinction between
the body and the universe.
Each
is the cause of the other; each is the other, in truth. But I am out
of it all. When I am telling you
that
I was never born, why go on asking me what were my preparations for
the next birth? The
moment
you allow your imagination to spin, it at once spins out a universe.
It is not at all as you
imagine
and I am not bound by your imaginings.
Questioner:
It requires intelligence and energy to build and maintain a living
body. Where do they come
from?
Nisargadatta:
There is only imagination. The intelligence and power are all used up
in your imagination. It has
absorbed
you so completely that you just cannot grasp how far from reality you
have wandered. No
doubt
imagination is richly creative. Universe within universe are built on
it. Yet they are all in space
and
time, past and future, which just do not exist.
Questioner:
I have read recently a report about a little girl who was very cruelly
handled in her early
childhood.
She was badly mutilated and disfigured and grew up in an orphanage,
completely
estranged
from its surroundings. This little girl was quiet and obedient, but
completely indifferent.
One
of the nuns who were looking after the children, was convinced that
the girl was not mentally
retarded,
but merely withdrawn, irresponsive. A psychoanalyst was asked to take
up the case and
for
full two years he would see the child once a week and try to break the
wall of isolation. She was
docile
and well-behaved, but would give no attention to her doctor. He
brought her a toy house, with
rooms
and movable furniture and dolls representing father, mother and their
children. It brought out
a
response, the girl got interested. One day the old hurts revived and
came to the surface.
Gradually
she recovered, a number of operations brought back her face and body
to normal and
she
grew into an efficient and attractive young woman. It took the doctor
more than five years, but
the
work was done. He was a real Guru! He did not put down conditions nor
talk about readiness
and
eligibility. Without faith, without hope, out of love only he tried
and tried again.
Nisargadatta:
Yes, that is the nature of a Guru. He will never give up. But, to
succeed, he must not be met
with
too much resistance. Doubt and disobedience necessarily delay. Given
confidence and
pliability,
he can bring about a radical change in the disciple speedily. Deep
insight in the Guru and
earnestness
in the disciple, both are needed. Whatever was her condition, the girl
in your story
suffered
for lack of earnestness in people. The most difficult are the
intellectuals. They talk a lot, but
are
not serious.
What
you call realisation is a natural thing. When you are ready, your Guru
will be waiting.
Sadhana
is effortless. When the relationship with your teacher is right you
grow. Above all, trust him. He
cannot
mislead you.
Questioner:
Even when he asks me to do something patently wrong?
Nisargadatta:
Do it. A Sanyasi had been asked by his Guru to marry. He obeyed and
suffered bitterly. But his
four
children were all saints and seers, the greatest in Maharashtra. Be
happy with whatever comes
from
your Guru and you will grow to perfection without striving.
Questioner:
Sir, have you any wants or wishes. Can I do anything for you?
Nisargadatta:
What can you give me that I do not have? Material things are needed
for contentment. But I am
contented
with myself. What else do I need?
Questioner:
Surely, when you are hungry you need food and when sick you need
medicine.
Nisargadatta:
Hunger brings the food and illness brings the medicine. It is all
nature's work.
Questioner:
lf I bring something I believe you need, will you accept it?
Nisargadatta:
The love that made you offer will make me accept.
Questioner:
If somebody offers to build you a beautiful Ashram?
Nisargadatta:
Let him, by all means. Let him spend a fortune, employ hundreds, feed
thousands.
Questioner:
Is it not a desire?
Nisargadatta:
Not at all. I am only asking him to do it properly, not stingily,
half-heartedly. He is fulfilling his
own
desire, not mine. Let him do it well and be famous among men and gods.
Questioner:
But do you want it?
Nisargadatta:
I do not want it.
Questioner:
Will you accept it?
Nisargadatta:
I don't need it.
Questioner:
Will you stay in it?
Nisargadatta:
If I am compelled.
Questioner:
What can compel you?
Nisargadatta:
Love of those who are in search of light.
Questioner:
Yes, I see your point. Now, how am I to go into samadhi?
Nisargadatta:
If you are in the right state, whatever you see will put you into
samadhi. After all, samadhi is
nothing
unusual. When the mind is intensely interested, it becomes one with
the object of interest --
the
seer and the seen become one in seeing, the hearer and the heard
become one in hearing, the
lover
and the loved become one in loving. Every experience can be the ground
for samadhi.
Questioner:
Are you always in a state of samadhi?
Nisargadatta:
Of course not Samadhi is a state of mind, after all. I am beyond all
experience, even of samadhi.
I
am the great devourer and destroyer: whatever I touch dissolves into
void (akash).
Questioner:
I need samadhis for self-realisation.
Nisargadatta:
You have all the self-realisation you need, but you do not trust it.
Have courage, trust yourself,
go,
talk, act; give it a chance to prove itself. With some, realisation
comes imperceptibly, but
somehow
they need convincing. They have changed, but they do not notice it.
Such non-
spectacular
cases are often the most reliable.
Questioner:
Can one believe himself to be realised and be mistaken?
Nisargadatta:
Of course. The very idea 'I am self-realised' is a mistake. There is
no 'I am this'. 'I am that' in the
Natural
State.