77.
'I' and 'Mine' are False Ideas
Questioner:
I am very much attached to my family and possessions. How can I
conquer this
attachment?
Nisargadatta:
This attachment is born along with the sense of 'me' and 'mine'.
Find the true meaning of
these
words and you will be free of all bondage. You have a mind which is
spread in time. One after
another
all things happen to you and the memory remains. There is nothing
wrong in it. The
problem
arises only when the memory of past pains and pleasures -- which are
essential to all
organic
life -- remains as a reflex, dominating behaviour. This reflex takes
the shape of 'I' and uses
the
body and the mind for its purposes, which are invariably in search
for pleasure or flight from
pain.
When you recognise the 'I' as it is, a bundle of desires and fears,
and the sense of 'mine', as
embracing
all things and people needed for the purpose of avoiding pain and
securing pleasure,
you
will see that the 'I' and the 'mine' are false ideas, having no
foundation in reality. Created by the
mind,
they rule their creator as long as it takes them to be true; when
questioned, they dissolve.
The
'I' and 'mine', having no existence in themselves, need a support
which they find in the body.
The
body becomes their point of reference. When you talk of 'my' husband
and 'my' children, you
mean
the body's husband and the body's children. Give up the idea of
being the body and face the
question:
Who am l? At once a process will be set in motion which will bring
back reality, or, rather,
will
take the mind to reality. Only, you must not be afraid.
Questioner:
What am I to be afraid of?
Nisargadatta:
For reality to be, the ideas of 'me' and 'mine' must go. They will
go if you let them. Then your
normal
natural state reappears, in which you are neither the body nor the
mind, neither the 'me’ nor
the
'mine', but in a different state of being altogether. It is pure
awareness of being, without being
this
or that, without any self-identification with anything in
particular, or in general. In that pure light
of
consciousness there is nothing, not even the idea of nothing. There
is only light.
Questioner:
There are people whom I love. Must I give them up?
Nisargadatta:
You only let go your hold on them. The rest is up to them. They may
lose interest in you, or may
not.
Questioner:
How could they? Are they not my own?
Nisargadatta:
They are your body's, not your own. Or, better, there is none who is
not your own.
Questioner:
And what about my possessions?
Nisargadatta:
When the 'mine' is no more, where are your possessions?
Questioner:
Please tell me, must I lose all by losing the 'I'?
Nisargadatta:
You may or you may not. It will be all the same to you. Your loss
will be somebody's gain. You
will
not mind.
Questioner:
If I do not mind, I shall lose all!
Nisargadatta:
Once you have nothing you have no problems.
Questioner:
I am left with the problem of survival.
Nisargadatta:
It is the body's problem and it will solve it by eating, drinking
and sleeping. There is enough for
all,
provided all share.
Questioner:
Our society is based on grabbing, not on sharing.
Nisargadatta:
By sharing you will change it.
Questioner:
I do not feel like sharing. Anyhow, I am being taxed out of my
possessions.
Nisargadatta:
This is not the same as voluntary sharing. Society will not change
by compulsion. It requires a
change
of heart. Understand that nothing is your own, that all belongs to
all. Then only society will
change.
Questioner:
One man's understanding will not take the world far.
Nisargadatta:
The world in which you live will be affected deeply. it will be a
healthy and happy world, which
will
radiate and communicate, increase and spread. The power of a true
heart is immense.
Questioner:
Please tell us more.
Nisargadatta:
Talking is not my hobby. Sometimes I talk, sometimes I do not. My
talking, or not talking, is a
part
of a given situation and does not depend on me. When there is a
situation in which I have to
talk,
I hear myself talking. In some other situation I may not hear myself
talking. It is all the same to
me.
Whether I talk or not, the light and love of being what I am are not
affected, nor are they under
my
control. They are, and I know they are. There is a glad awareness,
but nobody who is glad. Of
course,
there is a sense of identity, but it is the identity of a memory
track, like the identity of a
sequence
of pictures on the ever-present screen. Without the light and the
screen there can be no
picture.
To know the picture as the play of light on the screen, gives
freedom from the idea that the
picture
is real. All you have to do is to understand that you love the self
and the self loves you and
that
the sense 'I am' is the link between you both, a token of identity
in spite of apparent diversity.
Look
at the 'I am' as a sign of love between the inner and the outer, the
real and the appearance.
Just
like in a dream all is different, except the sense of 'I', which
enables you to say 'I dreamt', so
does
the sense of 'I am' enable you to say 'I am my real Self again’. I
do nothing, nor is anything
done
to me. I am what I am and nothing can affect me. I appear to depend
on everything, but in fact
all
depends on me.
Questioner:
How can you say you do nothing? Are you not talking to me?
Nisargadatta:
I do not have the feeling that I am talking. There is talking going
on, that is all.
Questioner:
I talk.
Nisargadatta:
Do you? You hear yourself talking and you say: I talk.
Questioner:
Everybody says: 'I work, I come, I go'.
Nisargadatta:
I have no objection to the conventions of your language, but they
distort and destroy reality. A
more
accurate way of saying would have been: 'There is talking, working,
coming, going'. For
anything
to happen, the entire universe must coincide. It is wrong to believe
that anything in
particular
can cause an event. Every cause is universal. Your very body would
not exist without the
entire
universe contributing to its creation and survival. I am fully aware
that things happen as they
happen
because the world is as it is. To affect the course of events I must
bring a new factor into
the
world and such factor can only be myself, the power of love and
understanding focussed in me.
When
the body is born, all kinds of things happen to it and you take part
in them, because you take
yourself
to be the body. You are like the man in the cinema house, laughing
and crying with the
picture,
though knowing fully well that he is all the time in his seat and
the picture is but the play of
light.
It is enough to shift attention from the screen to oneself to break
the spell. When the body
dies,
the kind of life you live now -- succession of physical and mental
events -- comes to an end. It
can
end even now -- without waiting for the death of the body -- it is
enough to shift attention to the
Self
and keep it there. All happens as if there is a mysterious power
that creates and moves
everything.
realise that you are not the mover, only the observer, and you will
be at peace.
Questioner:
Is that power separate from me?
Nisargadatta:
Of course not. But you must begin by being the dispassionate
observer. Then only will you
realise
your full being as the universal lover and actor. As long as you are
enmeshed in the
tribulations
of a particular personality, you can see nothing beyond it. But
ultimately you will come to
see
that you are neither the particular nor the universal, you are
beyond both. As the tiny point of a
pencil
can draw innumerable pictures, so does the dimensionless point of
awareness draw the
contents
of the vast universe. Find that point and be free.
Questioner:
Out of what do I create this world?
Nisargadatta:
Out of your own memories. As long as you are ignorant of yourself as
the creator, your world is
limited
and repetitive. Once you go beyond your self-identification with
your past, you are free to
create
a new world of harmony and beauty. Or you just remain -- beyond
being and non-being.
Questioner:
What will remain with me if I let go my memories?
Nisargadatta:
Nothing will remain.
Questioner:
I am afraid.
Nisargadatta:
You will be afraid until you experience freedom and its blessings.
Of course, some memories
are
needed to identify and guide the body and such memories do remain,
but there is no
attachment
left to the body as such; it is no longer the ground for desire or
fear. All this is not very
difficult
to understand and practice, but you must be interested. Without
interest nothing can be
done.
Having
seen that you are a bundle of memories held together by attachment,
step out and look from
the
outside. You may perceive for the first time something which is not
memory. You cease to be a
Mr-so-and-so,
busy about his own affairs. You are at last at peace. You realise
that nothing was
ever
wrong with the world -- you alone were wrong and now it is all over.
Never again will you be
caught
in the meshes of desire born of ignorance.