From "I Am That" dialogues with Nisargadatta Maraj
Maharaj: Where are you from?
Questioner: I am an American, but mostly live in Europe. I am just in India. I was in two ashram in Rishikesh, where I practiced the breathing techniques and meditation.
Maharaj: For how long?
Questioner: Eight days in an ashram, in the other six. There was good and I left. Then, for three weeks, I have been with the Tibetan lamas. But they were stuffed formulas and rituals.
Maharaj: Overall, what was the outcome?
Questioner: Of course an increase of energy. Before going to Rishikesh, I fasted and followed a diet of natural medicine hospital in South India Pudukkotai has helped me a lot.
Maharaj: Perhaps the increase in energy was due to improved health.
Questioner: I do not know. But the consequence is that they began accendermisi as to fires in various parts of the body and began to sing and hear imaginary voices.
Maharaja: Now that you're looking for?
Questioner: What we all? Some truth, a handful of certainties, a genuine happiness. In the schools of self, people are talking about awareness that we end up believing it's the same ultimate reality. Is that so? The body is controlled by the brain, which is illuminated by consciousness, which, in turn, is supported by the awareness is there anything beyond?
Maharaj: As you know that you are aware?
Questioner: I feel it. I can not explain it otherwise.
Maharaj: When you draw the path from the brain to consciousness, through consciousness, you realize that the sense of duality persists. If you go beyond awareness, enter the non-duality, where there is no purchase of study, but only pure being, you can also call non-being, if you want to be one particular thing.
Questioner: Your pure being is the universal, all?
Maharaj: All, all, involve an amount of detail. In the pure idea just be missing in particular.
Questioner: What is the relationship between pure being and the particular?
Maharaj: What relationship can there be between what is and what is merely appearance? O between the ocean and its waves? The real is the unreal appear and disappear. The succession of fleeting moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being does not move, because each movement requires a motionless background: and it is itself the background. When you find it in you, learn also that he never lost the pure being, which does not have to divide or separate. But if you look for in consciousness, you will not find. Do not look anywhere, because it contains nothing. And he, on the contrary, everything contains and manifests. Similar to the sunlight that makes everything visible, remaining invisible.
Questioner: What do I need to know that reality is not in consciousness? Where do I look? As the grab?
Maharaj: Very simple. If you ask what is the taste of your mouth, you can not answer that: neither bitter nor sweet, nor bitter nor sour. Ie. is what remains after all of those flavors is dissolved. Similarly, when all the reactions and the distinctions have disappeared, there remains the reality.
Questioner: I see a prisoner of an illusion perpetuated. I see how it could play out: if not, would have ended long ago. The opportunities I have had in the past were exactly. I own the future holds. This that could not happen does not happen. Or, if it ever happens, would not last. The miserable condition in which we find ourselves after millions of years of existence on earth, he promises, at best, the ultimate extinction, or, at worst, the threat of a senseless and endless repetition.
Maharaj: What evidence do you have that your state has this ever? What were you like before you were born? As you will be after death? What do you know your mind, even if ignorant as you were before waking up this morning? From what little I know of your present state, draw conclusions for every time and place. Maybe it is all a dream, destined to last forever.
Questioner: Call it a dream does not change the situation. Without doubt, it is sad to be mad and crazy to be sad, but I repeat the question: what could I still hope that eternity behind me did not have off? And because my future should be different from the past?
Maharaj: In your alteration, projecting a past and a future and take them for real. In reality, you know only the present. Why do not you linger there, instead of querying a fictional past and a future? your present has no beginning nor end. Passes a flash. Try to understand its origin and its goal. And you'll find the timeless reality that lies behind it.
Questioner: Why have not I done this before?
Maharaj: As each wave sinks into the ocean, so every time returns to the origin. The construction is to discover the source and remain there.
Questioner: Who made the discovery?
Maharaja: The mind.
Questioner: It is the answer?
Maharaj: I find it has no questions, questions that do not need.
Questioner: There is birth. There is death. As a witness to appear?
Maharaj: A child is born: a man dies: events in time.
Questioner: The witness is progressing? The knowledge evolves?
Maharaj: What you see may change when illuminated by an awareness, but the object is changing, not light. The plant grows in the sunlight, but the sun no. Both the body and the witness are immobile, but they appear to move when they are designed.
Questioner: All that moves and changes is not that 'I am. But there really need the 'I am?
Maharaj: Who needs them? There - at the time - had a beginning. end.
Questioner: What is when it stops?
Maharaja: What is not subject to going and coming. It is the mind with its eternal greed, which invented the ideas of progress and evolution toward perfection. Disturb the order and theorizes, destroys and seeking security.
Questioner: Is there any progress in fate, karma?
Maharaj: Karma is not only a reserve of energy released, of unfulfilled desires and fears misunderstood, constant supply of new desires and fears. But it can not be always the case. Discover the true cause of fear, estrangement from you, and desires, nostalgia for yourself, and your karma will dissolve like a dream. Life passes between the earth and sky. Nothing changes, only the bodies grow and decay.
Questioner: What is the relationship between the person and the witness?
Maharaj: There is no relationship because they are all one. Do not separate them and do not look for the relationships between them.
Questioner: If the observer and the observed are one, why have two?
Maharaj: Fascinated by names and forms, which are by nature diverse and multiple, you can distinguish and separate what is a. The world is full of diversity, but if you feel strange and scared, that's a misunderstanding. The body has reason to fear, not you.
Questioner: At the bottom there is an anguish of being organic radical, an instinct of flight, which takes many shapes and distorts the thoughts and feelings. From where?
Maharaj: It is a state of mind induced by the idea I-am-the-body. Remove the instilling I opposed the idea-not-have-the-body. Both are false but the one drives the other. Convince yourself that there are ideas that are yours, and that all will come from outside. You have to probe inside yourself, become your object of meditation. Yoga is the effort to understand yourself. Become a yogi, devoted his life to this task, ponder, investigate, search, until you get to the root of the error and truth behind it.
Questioner: meditator, the person or witness?
Maharaj: Meditation is the deliberate attempt to move into more states higher consciousness, to transcend the art of moving the focus of attention on more subtle levels, without losing the grip on those already explored. It's a bit like controlling death. At the lowest level to examine the social circumstances, customs and habits, the physical environment, the position of the body and breath, the senses and perceptions, the mind with its thoughts and feelings to catch up and dominate ' whole mechanism of the personality. Reach the final stage of meditation, when the sense of identity goes beyond the 'I-am-that, beyond the' I am, beyond the 'I-am-the-witness, even more than the' be there. up to the pure being impersonally staff. But we need a force overtime. It is a limited-time employment. Reduce interest and what you do to essential needs, and focus all energy and all your time in breaking the wall that was built around mind you. Believe me, I do not regret it.
Questioner: How do I know that my experience is universal?
Maharaja: At the end of meditation know everything directly, no need for evidence. As each drop has the flavor of the ocean, so every moment has the taste of eternity. The definitions and descriptions encourage research, but must exceed in order to grasp what is indefinable and indescribable except in negative terms. After all, even
universality and eternity are just concepts, identifying what is not depends on the space and time. The reality is not a concept, nor is its manifestation. Take care of your mind, Please remove the distortions and impurities. Once you've tasted your true self, you will meet him everywhere and at all times. To achieve this it is so important. Once you know, I do not get lost again. But you have to give you an opportunity with the intense meditation, untiring.
Questioner: Specifically, what should I do?
Maharaj: Focus your mind and heart on 'I am, ask yourself who it is, it is, what is its origin, its source of' energy and meaning. It is very similar to digging a well. Get rid of everything that is not water until you reach the spring.
Questioner: How will I know that I move in the right direction?
Maharaj: Your devotion will increase, as well as the clarity and firmness in purpose.
Questioner: For us Europeans it is very difficult to be quiet. The world overwhelms us.
Maharaja: Oh, no, you also dream. We differ only in the content of dreams. You pursue perfection in the future. We want it now. Only that which is limited and imperfect. The Unlimited is already perfect. You are perfect, but do not know. Getting to know you and you will discover wonders.
What you need is already within you, only you must approach it with respect and love. Self-hatred and self-destruction is heavy errors. Your constant flight from pain and the pursuit of pleasure, are a sign of love that you carry yourself. All of this is that I urge you: make perfect love for yourself. Nonnegative nothing largitevi infinity and eternity, and discover you do not need, you are well.
