80.
Awareness
Questioner:
Does it take time to realise the Self, or time cannot help to
realise? Is self-realisation a
matter
of time only, or does it depend on factors other than time?
Nisargadatta:
All waiting is futile. To depend on time to solve our problems is
self-delusion. The future,
left
to itself merely repeats the past. Change can only happen now, never
in the future.
Questioner:
What brings about a change?
Nisargadatta:
With crystal clarity see the need of change. This is all.
Questioner:
Does self-realisation happen in matter, or beyond? Is it not an
experience depending on the
body
and the mind for its occurrence?
Nisargadatta:
All experience is illusory, limited and temporal. Expect nothing
from experience. realisation by
itself
is not an experience, though it may lead to a new dimension of
experiences. Yet the new
experiences,
however interesting, are not more real than the old. Definitely
realisation is not a new
experience.
It is the discovery of the timeless factor in every experience. It
is awareness, which
makes
experience possible. Just like in all the colours light is the
colourless factor, so in every
experience
awareness is present, yet it is not an experience.
Questioner:
If awareness is not an experience, how can it be realised?
Nisargadatta:
Awareness is ever there. It need not be realised. Open the shutter
of the mind, and it will be
flooded
with light.
Questioner:
What is matter?
Nisargadatta:
What you do not understand is matter.
Questioner:
Science understands matter.
Nisargadatta:
Science merely pushes back the frontiers of our ignorance.
Questioner:
And what is nature?
Nisargadatta:
The totality of conscious experiences is nature. As a conscious self
you are a part of nature. As
awareness,
you are beyond. Seeing nature as mere consciousness is awareness.
Questioner:
Are there levels of awareness?
Nisargadatta:
There are levels in consciousness, but not in awareness. It is of
one block, homogeneous. Its
reflection
in the mind is love and understanding. There are levels of clarity
in understanding and
intensity
in love, but not in their source. The source is simple and single,
but its gifts are infinite.
Only
do not take the gifts for the source. realise yourself as the source
and not as the river; that is
all.
Questioner:
I am the river too.
Nisargadatta:
Of course, you are. As an 'I am' you are the river, flowing between
the banks of the body. But
you
are also the source and the ocean and the clouds in the sky.
Wherever there is life and
consciousness,
you are. Smaller than the smallest, bigger than the biggest, you
are,
while all else appears.
Questioner:
The sense of being and the sense of living -- are they one and the
same, or different?
Nisargadatta:
The identity in space creates one, the continuity in time creates
the other.
Questioner:
You said once that the seer, seeing and the seen are one single
thing, not three. To me the
three
are separate. I do not doubt your words, only I do not understand.
Nisargadatta:
Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen appear only
when there is seeing.
They
are attributes of seeing. When you say 'I am seeing this'. 'I am'
and 'this' come with seeing,
not
before. You cannot have an unseen 'this' nor an unseeing 'I am'.
Questioner:
I can say: 'I do not see'.
Nisargadatta:
The 'I am seeing this' has become 'l am seeing my not seeing', or 'I
am seeing darkness'. The
seeing
remains. In the triplicity: the known, knowing and the knower, only
the knowing is a fact. The
'I
am' and 'this' are doubtful. Who knows? What is known? There is no
certainty, except that there is
knowing.
Questioner:
Why am I sure of knowing, but not of the knower?
Nisargadatta:
Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along with being and
loving. The knower and the
known
are added by the mind. It is in the nature of the mind to create a
subject-object duality, where
there
is none.
Questioner:
What is the cause of desire and fear?
Nisargadatta:
Obviously, the memory of past pains and pleasures. There is no great
mystery about it. Conflict
arises
only when desire and fear refer to the same object.
Questioner:
How to put an end to memory?
Nisargadatta:
It is neither necessary, nor possible. realise that all happens in
consciousness and you are the
root,
the source, the foundation of consciousness. The world is but a
succession of experiences and
you
are what makes them conscious, and yet remain beyond all experience.
It is like the heat, the
flame
and the burning wood. The heat maintains the flame, the flame
consumes the wood. Without
heat
there would be neither flame nor fuel. Similarly, without awareness
there would be no
consciousness,
nor life, which transforms matter into a vehicle of consciousness.
Questioner:
You maintain that without me there would be no world, and that the
world and my knowledge of
the
world are identical. Science has come to a quite different
conclusion: the world exists as
something
concrete and continuous, while I am a by-product of biological
evolution of the nervous
system,
which is primarily not so much a seat of consciousness, as a
mechanism of survival as
individual
and species. Yours is altogether a subjective view, while science
tries to describe
everything
in objective terms. Is this contradiction inevitable?
Nisargadatta:
The confusion is apparent and purely verbal. What is, is. It is
neither subjective nor objective.
Matter
and mind are not separate, they are aspects of one energy. Look at
the mind as a function of
matter
and you have science; look at matter as the product of the mind and
you have religion.
Questioner:
But what is true? What comes first, mind or matter?
Nisargadatta:
Neither comes first. for neither appears alone. Matter is the shape,
mind is the name. Together
they
make the world. Pervading and transcending is Reality, pure being --
awareness -- bliss, your
very
essence.
Questioner:
All I know is the stream of consciousness, an endless succession of
events. The river of time
flows,
bringing and carrying away relentlessly. Transformation of the
future into past is going on all
the
time.
Nisargadatta:
Are you not the victim of your language? You speak about the flow of
time, as if you were
stationary.
But the events you have witnessed yesterday somebody else may see
tomorrow. It is
you
who are in movement and not time. Stop moving and time will cease.
Questioner:
What does it mean -- time will cease?
Nisargadatta:
Past and future will merge in the eternal now.
Questioner:
But what does it mean in actual experience? How do you know that for
you time has ceased?
Nisargadatta:
It may mean that past and future do not matter any more. It may also
mean that all that
happened
and will happen becomes an open book to be read at will.
Questioner:
I can imagine a sort of cosmic memory, accessible with some
training. But how can the future
be
known? The unexpected is inevitable.
Nisargadatta:
What is unexpected on one level may be certain to happen, when seen
from a higher level After
all,
we are within the limits of the mind. In reality nothing happens,
there is no past nor future; all
appears
and nothing is.
Questioner:
What does it mean, nothing is? Do you turn blank, or go to sleep? Or
do you dissolve the world
and
keep us all in abeyance, until we are brought back to life at the
next flicker of your thought?
Nisargadatta:
Oh, no, it is not that bad. The world of mind and matter, of names
and shapes, continues, but it
does
not matter to me at all. It is like having a shadow. It is there --
following me wherever I go, but
not
hindering me in any way. It remains a world of experiences, but not
of names and forms related
to
me by desires and fears. The experiences are qualityless, pure
experiences, if I may say so. I call
them
experiences for the lack of a better word. They are like the waves
on the surface of the ocean,
the
ever-present, but not affecting its peaceful power.
Questioner:
You mean to say an experience can be nameless, formless, undefined?
Nisargadatta:
In the beginning all experience is such. It is only desire and fear,
born of memory, that give it
name
and form and separate it from other experiences. It is not a
conscious experience, for it is not
in
opposition to other experiences, yet it is an experience all the
same.
Questioner:
If it is not conscious, why talk about it?
Nisargadatta:
Most of your experiences are unconscious. The conscious ones are
very few. You are unaware
of
the fact because to you only the conscious ones count. Become aware
of the unconscious.
Questioner:
Can one be aware of the unconscious? How is it done?
Nisargadatta:
Desire and fear are the obscuring and distorting factors. When mind
is free of them the
unconscious
becomes accessible.
Questioner:
Does it mean that the unconscious becomes conscious?
Nisargadatta:
It is rather the other way round. The conscious becomes one with the
unconscious. The
distinction
ceases, whichever way you look at it.
Questioner:
I am puzzled. How can one be aware and yet unconscious?
Nisargadatta:
Awareness is not limited to consciousness. It is of all that is.
Consciousness is of duality. There
is
no duality in awareness. It is one single block of pure cognition.
In the same way one can talk of
the
pure being and pure creation -- nameless, formless, silent and yet
absolutely real, powerful,
effective.
Their being indescribable does not affect them in the least. While
they are unconscious,
they
are essential. The conscious cannot change fundamentally, it can
only modify. Any thing, to
change,
must pass through death, through obscuration and dissolution. Gold
jewellery must be
melted
down before it is cast into another shape. What refuses to die
cannot be reborn.
Questioner:
Barring the death of the body, how does one die?
Nisargadatta:
Withdrawal, aloofness, letting go is death. To live fully, death is
essential; every ending makes a
new
beginning. On the other hand, do understand, that only the dead can
die, not the living. That
which
is alive in you, is immortal.
Questioner:
From where does desire draw its energy?
Nisargadatta:
Its name and shape it draws from memory. The energy flows from the
source.
Questioner:
Some desires are altogether wrong. How can wrong desires flow from a
sublime source?
Nisargadatta:
The source is neither right nor wrong. Nor is desire by itself right
or wrong. It is nothing but
striving
for happiness. Having identified yourself with a speck of a body you
feel lost and search
desperately
for the sense of fullness and completeness you call happiness.
Questioner:
When did I lose it? I never had it.
Nisargadatta:
You had it before you woke up this morning. Go beyond your
consciousness and you will find it.
Questioner:
How am I to go beyond?
Nisargadatta:
You know it already; do it.
Questioner:
That's what you say. I know nothing about it.
Nisargadatta:
Yet I repeat -- you know it. Do it. Go beyond, back to your normal,
natural, supreme state.
Questioner:
I'm puzzled.
Nisargadatta:
A speck in the eye makes you think you are blind. Wash it out and
look.
Questioner:
I do look! I see only darkness.
Nisargadatta:
Remove the speck and your eyes will be flooded with light. The light
is there -- waiting. The
eyes
are there -- ready. The darkness you see is but the shadow of the
tiny speck. Get rid of it and
come
back to your natural state.