Focus On The Birth Principle

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

January 5, 1981

Q: Although the individual body has a limited time span, consciousness is, in another sense, unlimited, as the bodies are infinite in number and always changing; correct?

M: That is correct. Consciousness is the material of creation.

Q: When one is completely submerged in consciousnesses to an extent that there is no separate entity, dies it follow that everything, the past, future, the present, is present in that, that there is really no such thing as time?

That is correct.

Q: Everything that exists is consciousness, and is in consciousness only, and although the human body is different from a flower, isn't it true that they are both only consciousness? The difference is in appearance only, but exactly the same in substance?

Everything is different in appearance. What is the same is the all-pervading consciousness. What is difficult to understand? The five elements, everything one sees, is made up of these.

Q: Is it correct to say that consciousness unmanifested is the Absolute, and the Absolute manifested is consciousness?

By having intellectual acrobatics one cannot realize the Ultimate. You are trying to circumscribe what is unlimited into that which is limited, the intellect. 

I am almost illiterate; why do people come ere to see me? What is the intellectual status of this lady? She is a Ph. D. Why does she come here? When I see you what am I looking at? Look at the birth principle, that dot, the point which was born. You are a product of the objective material, that drop. Did somebody create this body?

Q: No, it just came out of that drop.

M: Then why are you categorizing all these happenings? Just focus your attention on this point. Whatever you are presently is the product of that birth drop. Focus your attention on that and everything will be revealed to you. If you, as an entity, want to make an intellectual study of this subject, don't come to see me. Here it is you only; get in the test tube.

Why do you get entangled in the branches and leaves; why don't you go to the seed? Without the seed the tree would not be there. Find out where the seed comes from. This is what I am taking you back to again and again. Whatever I have to suffer, physical or otherwise, is due to what? It begins with self-love, the need to be present. This consciousness is the cause of all suffering. This love of being, love of self, love of consciousness, is the nature of what? It is the nature of the seed, the sperm. The consciousness was latent in that to which the name birth is given. Where is the one who understands this?

Having got the spiritual knowledge, why do you want to reduce it to pen and paper?

People will hear what I say, but hardly anyone will put it into practice. I did not have a long association with my Guru. My Guru merely told me, "You are not this, you are This." That is all. I accepted it with such conviction that the knowledge has flowered into what has come.

Out of food essence, the taste I AM. The Absolute has no taste, no color, no design. You cannot be witnessed by you; only what is other than you can be witnessed by you.