As They Come, So Will They Go

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: I have just arrived from Sri Ramanashram. I have spent seven months there.

M: What practice were you following at the Ashram?

Q: As far as I could, I concentrated on the 'Who am l'?

M: Which way were you doing it? Verbally?

Q: In my free moments during the course of the day. Sometimes I was murmuring to myself 'Who am l?' 'I am, but who am l?' Or, I did it mentally. Occasionally I would have some nice feeling, or get into moods of quiet happiness. On the whole I was trying to be quiet and receptive, rather than labouring for experiences.

M: What were you actually experiencing when you were in the right mood?

Q: A sense of inner stillness, peace and silence.

M: Did you notice yourself becoming unconscious?

Q: Yes, occasionally and for a very short time. Otherwise I was quiet, inwardly and outwardly.

M: What kind of quiet was it? Something akin to deep sleep, yet conscious all the same. A sort of wakeful sleep?

Q: Yes. Alertly asleep (jagrat-sushupti).

M: The main thing is to be free of negative emotions - desire, fear etc., the 'six enemies' of the mind. Once the mind is free of them, the rest will come easily. Just as cloth kept in soap water will become clean, so will the mind get purified in the stream of pure feeling. 

When you sit quiet and watch yourself, all kinds of things may come to the surface. Do nothing about them, don't react to them; as they have come so will they go, by themselves. All that matters is mindfulness, total awareness of oneself or rather of one's mind.

Q: By 'oneself', do you mean the daily self?

M: Yes, the person, which alone is objectively observable. The observer is beyond observation. What is observable is not the real self.

Q: I can always observe the observer in endless recession.

M: You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not. The self is known as being, the not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The self alone is.