You are in need of your Self

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: What about my desires, my needs?

M: You are in need of your Self.

Q: Is there any involvement between my desires and the raw materials?

M: Plenty of involvement. Out of the interaction and play of the five elements of this food body is available, in that the fragrance and taste is the knowledge I AM. Now you find out what is the indication that you are in this food body.

Q: Would fasting help me to find my Self?

M: Not at all. That I AMness is the very expression of the food. Suppose you want to find sweetness, sweetness is the quality of sugar, if you reject sugar where is the sweetness?

Q: Then I always have to go outside myself to food, to get this taste?

M: Can you get the food from inside? The supply comes from outside.

Q: I have always been led to believe that this sense of presence did not depend on body, that is the essence of spirituality, and now you tell me the opposite!

M: Therefore understand this mystery itself. Where does the world exist? It exists in this speck of consciousness, and this consciousness can exist only if there is food.

Whatever life you are living, you are only entertaining a concept. Find out is there such a thing as an individual. Think over it.

If the entertainment of the experience is easy, it is pleases you, you call it happiness, if not you call it unhappiness. The feeling that you are - the sense of presence -what has caused it to come about? Think on it.

Q: Everything is happening because I am.

M: Will you be able to retain this understanding always?

Q: Just for a moment and then the identification comes back.

M: It's a long way to get the understanding stabilized that everything is happening because I AM. Now, for how many days will you be in India?

Q: I have only a few more days here.

M: It is not important where you are, once you are established in the I AM. It is like space - it neither comes nor goes; just as when you demolish the walls of a building only space remains.