Seeker Dissolves, Search Remains

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense I AM tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am - unbound.

Q: Was your realization sudden or gradual?

M: Neither. One is what one is timelessly. It is the mind that realizes as and when it gets cleared of desires and fears.

Q: Even the desire for realization?

M: The desire to put an end to all desires is a most peculiar desire, just like the fear of being afraid is a most peculiar fear. One stops you from grabbing and the other from running. You may use the same words, but the states are not the same. The man who seeks realization is not addicted to his desires; he is a seeker who goes against desire, not with it. A general longing for liberation is only the beginning; to find the proper means and use them is the next step. The seeker has only one goal in view - to find his own true being. Of all desires it is the most ambitious, for nothing and nobody can satisfy it; the seeker and the sought are one and the search alone matters.

Q: The search will come to an end. The seeker will remain.

M: No, the seeker will dissolve, the search will remain. The search is the ultimate and timeless reality.

Q: Search means lacking, wanting, incompleteness and imperfection.

M: No, it means refusal and rejection of the incomplete and the imperfect. The search for Reality is itself with the movement of reality. In a way all search is for the real bliss, or the bliss of the real. But here we mean by search, the search for oneself as the root of being conscious, as the light beyond the mind. This search will never end, while the restless craving for all else must end, for real progress to take place. 

One has to understand that the search for Reality, or God, or Guru and the search for the Self are the same; when one is found, all are found. When I AM and 'God is' become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one.