Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q. What is love?
M. When the sense of distinction and separation is absent, you may call it love.
Q. Why so much stress on love between man and woman?
M. Because the element of happiness in it is so prominent.
Q. Is it not so in all love?
M. Not necessarily. Love may cause pain. You call it then compassion.
Q. What is happiness?
M. Harmony between the inner and the outer is happiness. On the other hand, self-identification with the outer causes is suffering.
Q. How does self-identification happen?
M. The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out (viveka) and to live alone (vairagya). When right behavior (uparati) becomes normal, a powerful inner urge (mumukshutva) makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and bright.
Q. What is the real cause of suffering?
M. Self-identification with the limited (vyaktitva). Sensations as such, however strong, do not cause suffering. It is the mind bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: 'I am this, I am that', that fears loss and craves gain and suffers when frustrated.
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