You Cannot Skip Your Sadhana

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: You say that the little girl is already the mother of her future child. Potentially - yes. Actually - no.

The potential becomes actual by thinking. the body and its affairs exist in the mind.

Q: And the mind is consciousness in motion and consciousness is the conditioned (saguna) aspect of the Self. The unconditioned (nirguna) is another aspect and beyond lies the abyss of the absolute (paramartha).

Quite right - you have put it beautifully.

Q: But these are mere words to me. Hearing and repeating them is not enough. They must be experienced.

Nothing stops you but preoccupation with the outer which prevents you from focusing the inner. It cannot be helped, you cannot skip your sadhana. You have to turn away from the world and go within, until the inner and the outer merge and you can go beyond the conditioned, whether inner or outer.

Q: Surely, the unconditioned is merely an idea in the conditioned mind. By itself it has no existence.

By itself nothing has existence. Everything needs its own absence. To be is to be distinguishable, to be here and not there, to be now and not then, to be thus and not otherwise. Like water is shaped by the container, so is everything determined by conditioned (gunas). As water remains water regardless of the vessels, as light remains itself regardless of the color it brings out, so does the real remain real, regardless of conditions in which it is reflected. Why keep the reflection only in the focus of consciousness? Why not the real itself?