It Happens Without Effort

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

February 22, 1981

Q: What should I do during the day? What kinds of thoughts and actions should I have in order to find out my true nature and have peace of mind?

M: Any thoughts or actions will be based on body-mind identity and in order to see your true nature there must be abandonment of this identity with the phenomenal center. This cannot come by any volitional action - it happens without any special efforts. There is no question of doing anything because there is no one to do anything.

The mind can only work with some name or form or image. If you give this up, the mind will be helpless. What I am saying about your true nature is so simple that the mind cannot grasp it.

What is has always been there. Give up conceptualizing and what 'is' remains. People will stop only at seeing the manifest. Who will go behind the manifest and see that the manifest and unmanifest are not two - they are one?

The manifest is seen as light, the unmanifest as dark, but what is, is the same thing - That which perceives both.

For the one who has abandoned the identification it is simple. Words can only point at something. That which is, is neither like me or like you, it is not even aware of what it is. Only when consciousness is conscious of itself can there be knowledge of anything. It is prior to any knowledge. It is very simple. People who are considered to be very learned come here, how do I see them? I see them as being in total ignorance.

Q: Why is there a fear of darkness?

M: Your question is totally incorrect. Go to the source without which neither light nor darkness could be cognized. What is the use of talking about what is objective when I have told you to go to the subject?

Q: I consider myself to be good or bad at different times.

M: This can only be with identification with the body; abandon this. From now on I will only say what  the position is, thereafter you must perceive. I have no physical resources for a dialogue. Whatever you hear cannot and will not go to waste.