Do Nothing

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: I am a Frenchman by birth and domicile and since about ten years I have been practicing Yoga.

M: After ten years of work are you anywhere nearer your goal?

Q: A little nearer, maybe. It is hard work, you know.

M: The Self  is near and the way to it is easy. All you need doing is doing nothing.

Q: Yet I found my sadhana difficult.

M: Your sadhana is to be. The doing happens. Just be watchful. Where is the difficulty in remembering that you are? You are all the time.

Q: The sense of being is there all the time - no doubt. But the field of attention is often overrun by all sorts of mental events - emotions, images, ideas. The pure sense of being is usually crowded out.

M: What is your procedure for clearing the mind of the unnecessary? What are your means, your tools for the purification of the mind?

Q: Basically, man is afraid. He is afraid of himself most. I feel I am like a man who is carrying a bomb that is going to explode. He cannot defuse it, he cannot throw it away. He is terribly frightened and is searching frantically for a solution, which he cannot find. To me liberation is getting rid of this bomb. I do not know much about the bomb. I only know that it comes from early childhood. I feel like the frightened child protesting passionately against not being loved. The child is craving for love and because he does not get it, he is afraid and angry. Sometimes I feel like killing somebody or myself. This desire is so strong that I am constantly afraid. And I do not know how to get free from fear. You see there is a difference between a Hindu mind and a European mind. The Hindu mind is comparatively simple. The European is a much more complex being. The Hindu is basically sattvic. He does not understand the European’s restlessness, his tireless pursuit of what he thinks needs be done; his greater general knowledge.

M: His reasoning capacity is so great, that he will reason himself out of all reason! His self-assertiveness is due to his reliance on logic.

Q: But thinking, reasoning is the mind's normal state. The mind just cannot stop working.

M: It may be the habitual state, but it need not be the normal state. A normal state cannot be painful, while a habit often leads to chronic pain.

Q: If it is not the natural, or normal state of mind, then how to stop it? There must be a way to quieten the mind. How often I tell myself: enough, please stop, enough of this endless chatter of sentences repeated round and round! But my mind would not stop. I feel that one can stop it for a while, but not for long. Even the so-called ‘spiritual’ people use tricks to keep their mind quiet. They repeat formulas, they sing, pray, breathe forcibly or gently, shake, rotate, concentrate, meditate, chase trances, cultivate virtues - working all the time, in order to cease working, cease chasing, cease moving. Were it not so tragic, it would be ridiculous.

M: The mind exists in two states: as water and as honey. The water vibrates at the least disturbance, while the honey, however disturbed, returns quickly to immobility.

Q: By its very nature the mind is restless. It can perhaps be made quiet. But it is not quiet by itself.

M: You may have a chronic fever and shiver all the time. It is desires and fears that make the mind restless. Free from all negative emotions it is quiet.