Hold Onto 'Chit'

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q:   I am like a box within box, within box, the outer box acting as the body and the one next to it -- as the indwelling soul. Abstract the outer box and the next becomes the body and the one next to it the soul. It is an infinite series, an endless opening of boxes, is the last one the ultimate soul?

M: If you have a body, you must have a soul; here your simile of a nest of boxes applies. But here and now, through all your bodies and souls shines awareness, the pure light of chit. Hold onto it unswervingly. Without awareness, the body would not last a second. There is in the body a current of energy, affection and intelligence, which guides, maintains and energises the body. Discover that current and stay with it. Of course, all these are manners of speaking. Words are as much a barrier, as a bridge. Find the spark of life that weaves the tissues of your body and be with it. It is the only reality the body has.

Q: What happens to that spark of life after death?

M: It is beyond time. Birth and death are but points in time. Life weaves eternally its many webs. The weaving is in time, but life itself is timeless. Whatever name and shape you give to its expressions, it is like the ocean - never changing, ever changing.

Q:   All you say sounds beautifully convincing. yet my feeling of being just a person in a world strange and alien, often inimical and dangerous, does not cease. Being a person, limited in space and time, how can I possibly realise myself as the opposite; a de-personalised, universalised awareness of nothing in particular?

M: You assert yourself to be what you are not and deny yourself to be what you are. You omit the element of pure cognition, of awareness free from all personal distortions. Unless you admit the reality of chit, you will never know yourself.

Q: What am I to do? I do not see myself as you see me. Maybe you are right and I am wrong, but how can I cease to be what I feel I am?

M: A prince who believes himself to be a beggar can be convinced conclusively in one way only; he must behave as a prince and see what happens. Behave as if what I say is true and judge by what actually happens. All I ask is the little faith needed for making the first step. With experience will come confidence and you will not need me anymore. I know what you are and I am telling you. Trust me for a while.

Q: To be here and now, I need my body and its senses. To understand I need a mind.

M: The body and the mind are only symptoms of ignorance, of misapprehension. Behave as if you were pure awareness, bodiless and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond 'where' and 'when' and 'how'. Dwell on it, think of it, learn to accept its reality. Don't oppose it and deny it all the time. Keep an open mind at least. Yoga is bending the outer to the inner. Make your mind and body express the real which is all and beyond all. By doing you succeed, not by arguing.

Q: Kindly allow me to come back to my first question. How does the error of being a person originate?

M: The Absolute precedes time. Awareness comes first. A bundle of memories and mental habits attracts attention, awareness gets focalized and a person suddenly appears. Remove the light of awareness, go to sleep or swoon away - and the person disappears. The person (vyakti) flickers, awareness (vyakta) contains all space and time, the absolute (avyakta) is.