Manifestation is Hallucination

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

February 18, 1981

Q: This identity with a body, as an entity, is present. Could anyone, at any stage, have done anything which could have prevented this identification?

M: It is the nature of this beingness to associate itself with a form. How can an imagined entity separate itself?

Q: Is this wanting to be separate also natural, a part of nature?

M: Yes. It is all part of natural functioning - part of the show. The entire thing is a concept. All that can be done is to understand. 

Look at the apparent contradiction: my own form is suffering, when that is known more people come here, more people receive advantages. Those advantages happen automatically, spontaneously - I am not working for those advantages which you get.

The talking which I do, and your listening, is part of the total functioning. You consider it as one individual listening to another individual, that is not so. What you hear is universal consciousness. This knowledge is not to be conveyed to a human being who is a spiritual infant. The human being is trying to collect benefits for an individual. When this identification is given up, the receptivity for the talks will be created. From an enormous tank of water you dip a tiny tumbler full and say, 'This is me.'

Whatever status and achievements one has attained will remain only so long as the name and form remain; once they have gone where is the entity who thinks he has achieved something? If this is deeply apperceived how can anything in the world bother you?

What I am talking about is this original concept, the consciousness, before which there was nothing. Whatever is in this original concept will remain only so long as the consciousness is there - then we go back to our original nature. When consciousness exposes itself to you and shows you your true nature, then you will have no form. Without a form can there be an image?

The entire manifestation is a hallucination, the nature of which is to be inconstant.