Detachment Brings Control

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: You seem to be so very indifferent to everything!

M: I am not indifferent, I am impartial. I give no preference to the me and the mine. A basket of earth and a basket of jewels are both unwanted. Life and death are all the same to me.

Impartiality makes you indifferent.

On the contrary, compassion and love are my very core. Void of all predilections, I am free to love.

Buddha said that the idea of enlightenment is extremely important. Most people go through their lives not even knowing that there is such a thing as enlightenment, leave alone the striving for it. Once they have heard of it, a seed was sown which cannot die. Therefore, he would send his bhikhus to preach ceaselessly for eight months every year.

'One can give food, clothes, shelter, knowledge, affection, but the highest gift is the gospel of enlightenment', my Guru used to say. You are right, enlightenment is the highest good. Once you have it, nobody can take it away from you.

If you would talk like this in the West, people would take you for mad.

Of course they would! To the ignorant all that they cannot understand is madness. What of it? Let them be as they are. I am as I am, for no merit of mine and they are as they are, for no fault of theirs. The Supreme Reality manifests itself in innumerable ways. Infinite in number are its names and shapes. All arise, all merge in the same ocean, the source of all is one. Looking for causes and results is but the pastime of the mind. What is, is lovable. Love is not a result, it is the very ground of being. Wherever you go, you will find being, consciousness and love. Why and what for make preferences?

When by natural causes thousands and millions of lives are extinguished (as it happens in floods and earthquakes), I do not grieve. But when one man dies at the hand of man, I grieve extremely. The inevitable has its own majesty, but killing is avoidable and, therefore, ugly and altogether horrible.

All happens as it happens. Calamities, whether natural or man-made, happen, and there is no need to feel horrified.

How can anything be without cause?

In every event the entire universe is reflected. The ultimate cause is untraceable. The very idea of causation is only a way of thinking and speaking. We cannot imagine, uncaused emergence. This, however, does not prove the existence of causation.

Nature is mindless, hence irresponsible. But man has a mind. Why is it so perverse?

The causes of perversity are also natural - heredity, environment etc. You are too quick to condemn. Do not worry about others. Deal with your own mind first. When you realize that your mind too is a part of nature, the duality will cease.

There is some mystery in it which I cannot fathom. How can the mind be a part of nature?

Because nature is in the mind: without the mind where is nature?

If nature is in the mind and the mind is my own, I should be able to control nature, which is not really the case. Forces beyond my control determine my behavior.

Develop the witness attitude and you will find in your own experience that detachment brings control. The state of witnessing is full of power, there is nothing passive about it.