82.
Absolute Perfection is Here and Now
Questioner:
The war is on. What is your attitude to it?
Nisargadatta:
In some place or other, in some form or other, the war is always on.
Was there a time
when
there was no war? Some say it is the will of God. Some say it is
God's play. It is another way
of
saying that wars are inevitable and nobody is responsible.
Questioner:
But what is your own attitude?
Nisargadatta:
Why impose attitudes on me? I have no attitude to call my own.
Questioner:
Surely somebody is responsible for this horrible and senseless
carnage. Why do people kill
each
other so readily?
Nisargadatta:
Search for the culprit within. The ideas of 'me' and 'mine' are at
the root of all conflict. Be free of
them
and you will be out of conflict.
Questioner:
What of it that I am out of conflict? It will not affect the war. If
I am the cause of war, I am ready
to
be destroyed. Yet, it stands to reason that the disappearance of a
thousand like me will not stop
wars.
They did not start with my birth nor will end with my death. I am
not Responsible. Who is?
Nisargadatta:
Strife and struggle are a part of existence. Why don't you enquire
who is responsible for
existence?
Questioner:
Why do you say that existence and conflict are inseparable? Can
there be no existence without
strife?
I need not fight others to be myself.
Nisargadatta:
You fight others all the time for your survival as a separate
body-mind, a particular name and
form.
To live you must destroy. From the moment you were conceived you
started a war with your
environment
-- a merciless war of mutual extermination, until death sets you
free.
Questioner:
My question remains unanswered. You are merely describing what I
know -- life and its sorrows.
But
who is responsible, you do not say. When I press you, you throw the
blame on God, or karma,
or
on my own greed and fear -- which merely invites further questions.
Give me the final answer.
Nisargadatta:
The final answer is this: nothing is. All is a momentary appearance
in the field of the universal
consciousness;
continuity as name and form is a mental formation only, easy to
dispel.
Questioner:
I am asking about the immediate, the transitory, the appearance.
Here is a picture of a child
killed
by soldiers. It is a fact -- staring at you. You cannot deny it.
Now, who is responsible for the
death
of the child?
Nisargadatta:
Nobody and everybody. The world is what it contains and each thing
affects all others. We all
kill
the child and we all die with it. Every event has innumerable causes
and produces numberless
effects.
It is useless to keep accounts, nothing is traceable.
Questioner:
Your people speak of karma and retribution.
Nisargadatta:
It is merely a gross approximation: in reality we are all creators
and creatures of each other,
causing
and bearing each other's burden.
Questioner:
So, the innocent suffers for the guilty?
Nisargadatta:
In our ignorance we are innocent; in our actions we are guilty. We
sin without knowing and
suffer
without understanding. Our only hope: to stop, to look, to
understand and to get out of the
traps
of memory. For memory feeds imagination and imagination generates
desire and fear.
Questioner:
Why do I imagine at all?
Nisargadatta:
The light of consciousness passes through the film of memory and
throws pictures on your
brain.
Because of the deficient and disordered state of your brain, what
you perceive is distorted
and
coloured by feelings of like and dislike. Make your thinking orderly
and free from emotional
overtones,
and you will see people and things as they are, with clarity and
charity.
The
witness of birth, life and death is one and the same. It is the
witness of pain and of love. For
while
the existence in limitation and separation is sorrowful, we love it.
We love it and hate it at the
same
time. We fight, we kill, we destroy life and property and yet we are
affectionate and self-
sacrificing.
We nurse the child tenderly and orphan it too. Our life is full of
contradictions. Yet we
cling
to it. This clinging is at the root of everything. Still, it is
entirely superficial. We hold on to
something
or somebody, with all our might and next moment we forget it; like a
child that shapes its
mud-pies
and abandons them light-heartedly. Touch them -- it will scream with
anger, divert the
child
and he forgets them. For our life is now, and the love of it is now.
We love variety, the play of
pain
and pleasure, we are fascinated by contrasts. For this we need the
opposites and their
apparent
separation. We enjoy them for a time and then get tired and crave
for the peace and
silence
of pure being. The cosmic heart beats ceaselessly. I am the witness
and the heart too.
Questioner:
I can see the picture, but who is the painter? Who is responsible
for this terrible and yet
adorable
experience?
Nisargadatta:
The painter is in the picture. You separate the painter from the
picture and look for him. Don't
separate
and don't put false questions. Things are as they are and nobody in
particular is
responsible.
The idea of personal responsibility comes from the illusion of
agency. 'Somebody must
have
done it, somebody is responsible'. Society as it is now, with its
framework of laws and
customs,
is based on the idea of a separate and responsible personality, but
this is not the only
form
a society can take. There may be other forms, where the sense of
separation is weak and
responsibility
diffused.
Questioner:
An individual with a weak sense of personality -- is he nearer
self-realisation?
Nisargadatta:
Take the case of a young child. The sense of 'I-am' is not yet
formed, the personality is
rudimentary.
The obstacles to self knowledge are few, but the power and the
clarity of awareness,
its
width and depth are lacking. In the course of years awareness will
grow stronger, but also the
latent
personality will emerge and obscure and complicate. Just as the
harder the wood, the hotter
the
flame, so the stronger the personality, brighter the light generated
from its destruction.
Questioner:
Have you no problems?
Nisargadatta:
I do have problems. I told you already. To be, to exist with a name
and form is painful, yet I love
it.
Questioner:
But you love everything!
Nisargadatta:
In existence everything is contained. My very nature is to love;
even the painful is lovable.
Questioner:
It does not make it less painful. Why not remain in the unlimited?
Nisargadatta:
It is the instinct of exploration, the love of the unknown, that
brings me into existence. It is in the
nature
of being to see adventure in becoming, as it is in the very nature
of becoming to seek peace
in
being. This alteration of being and becoming is inevitable; but my
home is beyond.
Questioner:
Is your home in God?
Nisargadatta:
To love and worship a god is also ignorance. My home is beyond all
notions, however sublime.
Questioner:
But God is not a notion! It is the reality beyond existence.
Nisargadatta:
You may use any word you like. Whatever you may think of am beyond
it.
Questioner:
Once you know your home, why not stay in it? What takes you out of
it?
Nisargadatta:
Out of love for corporate existence one is born and once born, one
gets involved in destiny.
Destiny
is inseparable from becoming. The desire to be the particular makes
you into a person with
all
its personal past and future. Look at some great man, what a
wonderful man he was! And yet
how
troubled was his life and limited its fruits. How utterly dependent
is the personality of man and
how
indifferent is its world. And yet we love it and protect it for its
very insignificance.
Questioner:
The war is on and there is chaos and you are being asked to take
charge of a feeding centre.
You
are given what is needed, it is only a question of getting through
the job. Will you refuse it?
Nisargadatta:
To work, or not to work, is one and the same to me. I may take
charge, or may not. There may
be
others, better endowed for such tasks, than I am -- professional
caterers for instance. But my
attitude
is different. I do not look at death as a calamity as I do not
rejoice at the birth of a child. The
child
is out for trouble while the dead is out of it. Attachment to life
is attachment to sorrow. We love
what
gives us pain. Such is our nature.
For
me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear.
I cried when I was born and I
shall
die laughing.
Questioner:
What is the change in consciousness at the moment of death?
Nisargadatta:
What change do you expect? When the film projection ends all remains
the same as when it
started.
The state before you were born was also the state after death, if
you remember.
Questioner:
I remember nothing.
Nisargadatta:
Because you never tried. It is only a question of tuning in the
mind. It requires training, of course.
Questioner:
Why don't you take part in social work?
Nisargadatta:
But I am doing nothing else all the time! And what is the social
work you want me to do?
Patchwork
is not for me. My stand is clear: produce to distribute, feed before
you eat, give before
you
take, think of others, before you think of yourself. Only a selfless
society based on sharing can
be
stable and happy. This is the only practical solution. If you do not
want it -- fight.
Questioner:
It is all a matter of gunas. Where tamas and rajas predominate,
there must be war. Where
sattva
rules, there will be peace.
Nisargadatta:
Put it whichever way you like, it comes to the same. Society is
built on motives. Put goodwill into
the
foundations and you will not need specialised social workers.
Questioner:
The world is getting better.
Nisargadatta:
The world had all the time to get better, yet it did not. What hope
is there for the future? Of
course,
there have been and will be periods of harmony and peace, when
sattva was in
ascendance,
but things get destroyed by their own perfection. A perfect society
is necessarily static
and,
therefore, it stagnates and decays. From the summit all roads lead
downwards. Societies are
like
people -- they are born, they grow to some point of relative
perfection and then decay and die.
Questioner:
Is there not a state of absolute perfection which does not decay?
Nisargadatta:
Whatever has a beginning must have an end. In the timeless all is
perfect, here and now.
Questioner:
But shall we reach the timeless in due course?
Nisargadatta:
In due course we shall come back to the starting point. Time cannot
take us out of time, as
space
cannot take us out of space. All you get by waiting is more waiting.
Absolute perfection is
here
and now, not in some future, near or far. The secret is in action --
here and now. It is your
behaviour
that blinds you to yourself. Disregard whatever you think yourself
to be and act as if you
were
absolutely perfect -- whatever your idea of perfection may be. All
you need is courage.
Questioner:
Where do I find such courage?
Nisargadatta:
In yourself, of course. Look within.
Questioner:
Your grace will help
Nisargadatta:
My grace is telling you now: look within. All you need you have. Use
it. Behave as best you
know,
do what you think you should. Don't be afraid of mistakes; you can
always correct them, only
intentions
matter. The shape things take is not within your power; the motives
of your actions are.
Questioner:
How can action born from imperfection lead to perfection?
Nisargadatta:
Action does not lead to perfection; perfection is expressed in
action. As long as you judge
yourself
by your expressions give them utmost attention; when you realise
your own being your
behaviour
will be perfect -- spontaneously.
Questioner:
If I am timelessly perfect, then why was I born at all? What is the
purpose of this life?
Nisargadatta:
It is like asking: what does it profit gold to be made into an
ornament? The ornament gets the
colour
and the beauty of gold; gold is not enriched. Similarly, reality
expressed in action makes the
action
meaningful and beautiful.
Questioner:
What does the real gain through its expressions?
Nisargadatta:
What can it gain? Nothing whatsoever. But it is in the nature of
love to express itself, to affirm
itself,
to overcome difficulties. Once you have understood that the world is
love in action, you will
look
at it quite differently. But first your attitude to suffering must
change. Suffering is primarily a call
for
attention, which itself is a movement of love. More than happiness,
love wants growth, the
widening
and deepening of consciousness and being. Whatever prevents becomes
a cause of pain,
and
love does not shirk from pain. Sattva, the energy that works for
righteousness and orderly
development,
must not be thwarted. When obstructed it turns against itself and
becomes
destructive.
Whenever love is withheld and suffering allowed to spread, war
becomes inevitable.
Our
indifference to our neighbour’s sorrow brings suffering to our door.