93.
Man is not the Doer
Questioner:
From the beginning of my life I am pursued by a sense of
incompleteness. From
school
to college, to work, to marriage, to affluence, I imagined that the
next thing will surely give
me
peace, but there was no peace. This sense of unfulfillment keeps on
growing as years pass by.
Nisargadatta:
As long as there is the body and the sense of identity with the
body, frustration is
inevitable.
Only when you know yourself as entirely alien to and different from
the body, will you find
respite
from the mixture of fear and craving inseparable from the
'I-am-the-body' idea. Merely
assuaging
fears and satisfying desires will not remove this sense of emptiness
you are trying to
escape
from; only self-knowledge can help you. By self-knowledge I mean
full knowledge of what
you
are not. Such knowledge is attainable and final; but to the
discovery of what you are there can
be
no end. The more you discover, the more there remains to discover.
Questioner:
For this we must have different parents and schools, live in a
different society.
Nisargadatta:
You; cannot change your circumstances, but your attitudes you can
change. You need not be
attached
to the non-essentials. Only the necessary is good. There is peace
only in the essential.
Questioner:
It is truth I seek, not peace.
Nisargadatta:
You cannot see the true unless you are at peace. A quiet mind is
essential for right perception,
which
again is required for self-realisation.
Questioner:
I have so much to do. I just cannot afford to keep my mind quiet.
Nisargadatta:
It is because of your illusion that you are the doer. In reality
things are done to you, not by you.
Questioner:
If I just let things happen, how can I be sure that they will happen
my way? Surely I must bend
them
to my desire.
Nisargadatta:
Your desire just happens to you along with its fulfilment, or
non-fulfilment. You can change
neither.
You may believe that you exert yourself, strive and struggle. Again,
it all merely happens,
including
the fruits of the work. Nothing is by you and for you. All is in the
picture exposed on the
cinema
screen, nothing in the light, including what you take yourself to
be, the person. You are the
light only.
Questioner:
If I am light only, how did I come to forget it?
Nisargadatta:
You have not forgotten. It is in the picture on the screen that you
forget and then remember.
You
never cease to be a man because you dream to be a tiger. Similarly
you are pure light
appearing
as a picture on the screen and also becoming one with it.
Questioner:
Since all happens, why should I worry?
Nisargadatta:
Exactly. Freedom is freedom from worry. Having realised that you
cannot influence the results,
pay
no attention to your desires and fears. Let them come and go. Don't
give them the nourishment
of
interest and attention.
Questioner:
If I turn my attention from what happens, what am I to live by?
Nisargadatta:
Again it is like asking: 'What shall I do, if I stop dreaming?' Stop
and see. You need not be
anxious:
'What next?' There is always the next. Life does not begin nor, end:
immovable -- it moves,
momentary
-- it lasts. Light can not be exhausted even if innumerable pictures
are projected by it.
So
does life fill every shape to the brim and return to its source,
when the shape breaks down.
Questioner:
If life is so wonderful, how could ignorance happen?
Nisargadatta:
You want to treat the disease without having seen the patient!
Before you ask about ignorance,
why
don't you enquire first, who is the ignorant? When you say you are
ignorant, you do not know
that
you have imposed the concept of ignorance over the actual state of
your thoughts and feelings.
Examine
them as they occur, give them your full attention and you will find
that there is nothing like
ignorance,
only inattention. Give attention to what worries you, that is all.
After all, worry is mental
pain
and pain is invariably a call for attention. The moment you give
attention, the call for it ceases
and
the question of ignorance dissolves. Instead of waiting for an
answer to your question, find out
who
is asking the question and what makes him ask it. You will soon find
that it is the mind, goaded
by
fear of pain, that asks the question. And in fear there is memory
and anticipation, past and
future.
Attention brings you back to the present, the now, and the presence
in the now is a state
ever
at hand, but rarely noticed.
Questioner:
You are reducing sadhana to simple attention. How is it that other
teachers teach complete,
difficult
and time-consuming courses?
Nisargadatta:
The Gurus usually teach the sadhanas by which they themselves have
reached their goal,
whatever
their goal may be. This is but natural, for their own sadhana they
know intimately. I was
taught
to give attention to my sense of 'I am’ and I found it supremely
effective. Therefore, I can
speak
of it with full confidence. But often people come with their bodies,
brain and minds so
mishandled,
perverted and weak, that the state of formless attention is beyond
them. In such cases,
some
simpler token of earnestness is appropriate. The repetition of a
mantra, or gazing at a picture
will
prepare their body and mind for a deeper and more direct search.
After all, it is earnestness that
is
indispensable, the crucial factor. Sadhana is only a vessel and it
must be filled to the brim with
earnestness,
which is but love in action. For nothing can be done without love.
Questioner:
We love only ourselves.
Nisargadatta:
Were it so, it would be splendid! Love your self wisely and you will
reach the summit of
perfection.
Everybody loves his body, but few love their real being.
Questioner:
Does my real being need my love?
Nisargadatta:
Your real being is love itself and your many loves are its
reflections according to the situation at
the
moment.
Questioner:
We are selfish, we know only self-love.
Nisargadatta:
Good enough for a start. By all means wish yourself well. Think
over, feel out deeply what is
really
good for you and strive for it earnestly. Very soon you will find
that the real is your only good.
Questioner:
Yet I do not understand why the various Gurus insist on prescribing
complicated and difficult
sadhanas.
Don't they know better?
Nisargadatta:
It is not what you do, but what you stop doing that matters. The
people who begin their
sadhana
are so feverish and restless, that they have to be very busy to keep
themselves on the track. An
absorbing
routine is good for them. After some time they quieten down and turn
away from effort. In
peace
and silence the skin of the 'I' dissolves and the inner and the
outer become one. The real
sadhana
is effortless.
Questioner:
I have sometimes the feeling that space itself is my body.
Nisargadatta:
When you are bound by the illusion: 'I am this body', you are merely
a point in space and a
moment
in time. When the self-identification with the body is no more, all
space and time are in your
mind,
which is a mere ripple in consciousness, which is awareness
reflected in nature. Awareness
and
matter are the active and the passive aspects of pure being, which
is in both and beyond both.
Space
and time are the body and the mind of the universal existence. My
feeling is that all that
happens
in space and time happens to me, that every experience is my
experience every form is
my
form. What I take myself to be, becomes my body and all that happens
to that body becomes
my
mind. But at the root of the universe there is pure awareness,
beyond space and time, here and
now.
Know it to be your real being and act accordingly.
Questioner:
What difference will it make in action what I take myself to be.
Actions just happen according to
circumstances.
Nisargadatta:
Circumstances and conditions rule the ignorant. The knower of
reality is not compelled. The
only
law he obeys is that of love.