You Are On Your Own

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You must realize first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself. None can prove your existence, because his existence must be confirmed by you first. Your being and knowing you owe nobody. Remember you are entirely on your own. You do not come from somewhere, you do not go anywhere. You are timeless being and awareness.

There is a basic difference between us. You know the real while I know only the workings of my mind. Therefore what you say is one thing, what I hear is another. What you say is true; what I understand is false, though the words are the same. There is a gap between us. How to close the gap?

Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be and there will be no gap. By imagining yourself as separate you have created the gap. You need not cross it. Just don't create it. All is you and yours. There is nobody else. This is a fact. 

How strange! The very same words which to you are true, to me are false. 'There is nobody else.' How obviously untrue!

Let them be true or untrue. Words don't matter. What matters is the idea you have of yourself for it blocks you. Give it up.

From early childhood I was taught to think that I am limited to my name and shape. A mere statement to the contrary will not erase the mental groove. A regular brain washing is needed - if at all it can be done.

You call it brain washing, I call it Yoga - levelling up all the mental ruts. You must not be compelled to think the same thoughts again and again. Move on!

Easier said than done.

Don't be childish! Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow out of your childishness, that is all.

Such things are not done. They happen.

Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it. Readiness is ripeness. You do not see the real because your mind is not ready for it.

If reality is my real nature how can I ever be unready?

Unready means afraid. You are afraid of what you are. Your destination is the whole. But you are afraid that you will lose your identity. This is childishness, clinging to the toys, to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself. This self-assertion is best expressed in words I AM. Nothing else has being. Of this you are absolutely certain.

I AM of course but I KNOW also. And I know that I am so and so, the owner of the body, in manifold relations with other owners.

It is all memory carried over into the now.

I can be certain only of what is now. Past and future, memory and imagination, these are mental states, but they are all I know and they are now. You are telling me to abandon them. How does one abandon the now?

You are moving into the future all the time whether you like it or not.

I am moving from now into now - I do not move at all. Everything else moves - not me.

Granted. But your mind does move. In the 'now' you are both the movable and the immovable. So far you took yourself to be the movable and overlooked the immovable. Turn your mind inside out. Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present, changeless reality, inexpressible, but solid like a rock.