88.
Knowledge by the Mind, is not True Knowledge
Questioner:
Do you experience the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping
just as we do, or
otherwise?
Nisargadatta:
All the three states are sleep to me. My waking state is beyond them.
As I look at you, you
all
seem asleep, dreaming up words of your own. I am aware, for I imagine
nothing. It is not
samadhi
which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a state unaffected by the
mind, free from the past and
future.
In your case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and
hopes; in mine it is as it is --
normal.
To be a person is to be asleep.
Questioner:
Between the body and pure awareness stands the ‘inner organ’,
antahkarana, the ‘subtle body’,
the
‘mental body’, whatever the name. Just as a whirling mirror converts
sunlight into a manifold
pattern
of streaks and colours, so does the subtle body convert the simple
light of the shining Self
into
a diversified world. Thus I have understood your teaching. What I
cannot grasp is how did this
subtle
body arise in the first instance?
Nisargadatta:
It is created with the emergence of the ‘I am’ idea. The two are one.
Questioner:
How did the ‘I am’ appear?
Nisargadatta:
In your world everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does
not, you call it eternal. In
my
view there is no such thing as beginning or end -- these are all
related to time. Timeless being is
entirely
in the now.
Questioner:
The antahkarana, or the ‘subtle body’, is it real or unreal?
Nisargadatta:
It is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over.
Questioner:
What kind of reality? Is it momentary?
Nisargadatta:
Call it empirical, or actual, or factual. It is the reality of
immediate experience, here and now,
which
cannot be denied. You can question the description and the meaning,
but not the event itself.
Being
and non-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The Immutable
Reality lies beyond
space
and time. Realise the momentariness of being and non-being and be free
from both.
Questioner:
Things may be transient, yet they are very much with us, in endless
repetition.
Nisargadatta:
Desires are strong. It is desire that causes repetition. There is no
recurrence where desire is not.
Questioner:
What about fear?
Nisargadatta:
Desire is of the past, fear is of the future. The memory of past
suffering and the fear of its
recurrence
make one anxious about the future.
Questioner:
There is also fear of the unknown.
Nisargadatta:
Who has not suffered is not afraid.
Questioner:
We are condemned to fear?
Nisargadatta:
Until we can look at fear and accept it as the shadow of personal
existence, as persons we are
bound
to be afraid. Abandon all personal equations and you shall be free
from fear. It is not difficult.
Desirelessness
comes on its own when desire is recognised as false. You need not
struggle with
desire.
Ultimately, it is an urge to happiness, which is natural as long as
there is sorrow. Only see
that
there is no happiness in what you desire.
Questioner:
We settle for pleasure.
Nisargadatta:
Each pleasure is wrapped in pain. You soon discover that you cannot
have one without the other.
Questioner:
There is the experiencer and there is his experience. What created the
link between the two?
Nisargadatta:
Nothing created it. It is. The two are one.
Questioner:
I feel there is a catch somewhere, but I do not know where.
Nisargadatta:
The catch is in your mind, which insists on seeing duality where there
is none.
Questioner:
As I listen to you, my mind is all in the now and I am astonished to
find myself without questions.
Nisargadatta:
You can know reality only when you are astonished.
Questioner:
I can make out that the cause of anxiety and fear is memory. What are
the means for putting an
end
to memory?
Nisargadatta:
Don’t talk of means, there are no means. What you see as false,
dissolves. It is the very nature
of
illusion to dissolve on investigation. Investigate -- that is all. You
cannot destroy the false, for you
are
creating it all the time. Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and
it will cease to be.
Questioner:
Christ also speaks of ignoring evil and being child-like.
Nisargadatta:
Reality is common to all. Only the false is personal.
Questioner:
As I watch the sadhakas and enquire into the theories by which they
live, I find they have
merely
replaced material cravings by ‘spiritual’ ambitions. From what you
tell us it looks as if the
words:
‘spiritual’ and ‘ambition’ are incompatible. If ‘spirituality’ implies
freedom from ambition, what
will
urge the seeker on? The Yogis speak of the desire for liberation as
essential. Is it not the
highest
form of ambition?
Nisargadatta:
Ambition is personal, liberation is from the personal. In liberation
both the subject and the object
of
ambition are no longer. Earnestness is not a yearning for the fruits
of one’s endeavours. It is an
expression
of an inner shift of interest away from the false, unessential, the
personal.
Questioner:
You told us the other day that we cannot even dream of perfection
before realisation, for the
Self
is the source of all perfection and not the mind. If it is not
excellence in virtue that is essential
for
liberation, then what is?
Nisargadatta:
Liberation is not the result of some means skilfully applied, nor of
circumstances. It is beyond
the
causal process. Nothing can compel it, nothing can prevent it.
Questioner:
Then why are we not free here and now?
Nisargadatta:
But we are free ‘here and now’. It is only the mind that imagines
bondage.
Questioner:
What will put an end to imagination?
Nisargadatta:
Why should you want to put an end to it? Once you know your mind and
its miraculous powers,
and
remove what poisoned it -- the idea of a separate and isolated person
-- you just leave it alone
to
do its work among things to which it is well suited. To keep the mind
in its own place and on its
own
work is the liberation of the mind.
Questioner:
What is the work of the mind?
Nisargadatta:
The mind is the wife of the heart and the world their home -- to be
kept bright and happy.
Questioner:
I have not yet understood why, if nothing stands in the way of
liberation, it does not happen
here
and now.
Nisargadatta:
Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here
and now, but for your being
more
interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests.
You must go with them,
see
through them and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of
judgement and appreciation.
Questioner:
Will it not help me if I go and stay with some great and holy man?
Nisargadatta:
Great and holy people are always within your reach, but you do not
recognise them. How will
you
know who is great and holy? By hearsay? Can you trust others in these
matters, or even
yourself?
To convince you beyond the shadow of doubt you need more than a
commendation, more
even
than a momentary rapture. You may come across a great and holy man or
women and not
even
know for a long time your good fortune. The infant son of a great man
for many years will not
know
the greatness of his father. You must mature to recognise greatness
and purify your heart for
holiness.
Or you will spend your time and money in vain and also miss what life
offers you. There
are
good people among your friends -- you can learn much from them.
Running after saints is
merely
another game to play. Remember yourself instead and watch your daily
life relentlessly. Be
earnest,
and you shall not fail to break the bonds of inattention and
imagination.
Questioner:
Do you want me to struggle all alone?
Nisargadatta:
You are never alone. There are powers and presences who serve you all
the time most
faithfully.
You may or may not perceive them, nevertheless they are real and
active. When you
realise
that all is in your mind and that you are beyond the mind, that you
are truly alone; then all is
you.
Questioner:
What is omniscience? Is God omniscient? Are you omniscient? We hear
the expression --
universal
witness. What does it mean? Does self-realisation imply omniscience?
Or is it a matter of
specialised
training?
Nisargadatta:
To lose entirely all interest in knowledge results in omniscience. It
is but the gift of knowing what
needs
to be known, at the right moment, for error-free action. After all,
knowledge is needed for
action
and if you act rightly, spontaneously, without bringing in the
conscious, so much the better.
Questioner:
Can one know the mind of another person?
Nisargadatta:
Know you own mind first. It contains the entire universe and with
space to spare!
Questioner:
Your working theory seems to be that the waking state is not basically
different from dream and
the
dreamless sleep. The three states are essentially a case of mistaken
self-identification with the
body.
Maybe it is true, but, I feel, it is not the whole truth.
Nisargadatta:
Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true
knowledge. But you can know
what
is not true -- which is enough to liberate you from the false. The
idea that you know what is
true
is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you
do not know, that you are
free
to investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation,
because non-investigation
is
the main cause of bondage.
Questioner:
You say that the illusion of the world begins with the sense ‘I am’,
but when I ask about the
origin
of the sense ‘I am’, you answer that it has no origin, for on
investigation it dissolves. What is
solid
enough to build the world on cannot be mere illusion. The ‘I am’ is
the only changeless factor I
am
conscious of; how can it be false?
Nisargadatta:
It is not the ‘I am’ that is false, but what you take yourself to be.
I can see, beyond the least
shadow
of doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Logic or
no logic, you cannot
deny
the obvious. You are nothing that you are conscious of. Apply yourself
diligently to pulling
apart
the structure you have built in your mind. What the mind has done the
mind must undo.
Questioner:
You cannot deny the present moment, mind or no mind. What is now, is.
You may question the
appearance,
but not the fact. What is at the root of the fact?
Nisargadatta:
The ‘I am’ is at the root of all appearance and the permanent link in
the succession of events
that
we call life; but I am beyond the ‘I am’.
Questioner:
I have found that the realised people usually describe their state in
terms borrowed from their
religion.
You happen to be a Hindu, so you talk of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and
use Hindu
approaches
and imagery. Kindly tell us, what is the experience behind your words?
What reality do
they
refer to?
Nisargadatta:
It is my way of talking, a language I was taught to use.
Questioner:
But what is behind the language?
Nisargadatta:
How can I put it into words, except in negating them? Therefore, I use
words like timeless,
spaceless,
causeless. These too are words, but as they are empty of meaning, they
suit my
purpose.
Questioner:
If they are meaningless, why use them?
Nisargadatta:
Because you want words where no words apply.
Questioner:
I can see your point. Again, you have robbed me of my question!