He Came to Scoff - 2

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

V: Now, you and I are separate individuals who have to live and work in this world along with millions of others, of course. How do you view me?

M: I view you in this world exactly as you view yourself in your dream. Does that satisfy you? In a dream whilst your body is resting in your bed, you have created a whole world - parallel to what you call the 'real' world - in which there are people including yourself. How do you view yourself in your dream? In the waking state, the world emerges and you are taken into what I would call a waking-dream state. While you are dreaming, your dream-world appears to you very real indeed, does it not? How do you know that this world that you call real is also not a dream? It is a dream from which you must awaken yourself by seeing the false as false, the unreal as unreal, the transient as transient; it can exist only in conceptual space-time. And then, after such an awakening you are in Reality. Then you see the world as living, as a phenomenal dream within the periphery of sensorial perception in space-time with a supposed volitional freedom.

Now, about what you call an individual: why don't you examine this phenomenon analytically, of course with an open mind, after giving up all existing mental conditioning and preconceived ideas? If you do so, what will you find?

The body is merely a physical construct for this prana and consciousness, which constitute a sort of psychosomatic apparatus and this individual does nothing other than responding to outside stimuli and producing illusory images and interpretations. And, further, this individual sentient being can exist only as an object in the consciousness that cognizes it! It is just a hallucination.

V: Do you really mean to say that you see no difference between a dream dreamt by me and my living in this world?

M: You have had quite a lot already to cogitate and meditate upon. Are you sure you wish me to proceed?

V: I am used to large doses of serious study, and I have no doubt you too are. I would be most grateful indeed if we could proceed further and take this to its logical conclusion.

M: Very well. When you were in deep sleep, did the phenomenal world exist for you? Can you not intuitively and naturally visualize your pristine state - your original being - before this body-consciousness condition intruded upon you unasked, unaided? In that state, were you conscious of your existence? Certainly not.

The universal manifestation is only in consciousness, but the awakened one has his centre of seeing in the Absolute. In the original state of pure being, not aware of its beingness, consciousness arises like a wave on an expanse of water, and in consciousness the world appears and disappears. The waves rise and fall, but the expanse of water remains. Before all beginnings, after all endings, I am. Whatever happens, "I" must be there to witness it.

It is not that the world does not exist. Exist it does, but merely as an appearance in consciousness - the totality of the known manifested, in the infinity of the unknown, unmanifested. What begins must end. What appears must disappear. The duration of appearance is a matter of relativity, but the principle is that whatever is subject to time and duration must end, and is therefore not real.

Now, can you not apperceive that in this living-dream you are still asleep, that all that is cognizable is contained in this fantasy of living; and that the one, who whilst cognizing this objectified world considers oneself an entity apart from the totality which is cognized, is actually very much an integral part of the very hypothetical world?

Also, consider: we seem to be convinced that we live a life of our own, according to our own wishes and hopes and ambitions, according to our own plan and design through our own individual efforts. But is that really so? Or are we being dreamed and lived without volition, totally as puppets exactly as in a personal dream? Think! Never forget that just as the world exists, albeit as an appearance, the dreamed figures too, in either dream, must have a content - they are what the dream-subject is. That is why I say: Relatively I am not, but the manifested universe is myself.

V: I think I am beginning to get the whole idea.

M: Is not thinking itself a notion in the mind? Thought is absent in seeing things intuitively. When you think you understand, you don't. When you perceive directly, there is no thinking. You know that you are alive; you do not think that you are alive.

V: Good heavens! This seems to be a new dimension that you are presenting.

M: Well, I don't know about a new dimension, but you have expressed it well. It could indeed be said to be a fresh direction of measurement - a new centre of vision - inasmuch as by avoiding thought and perceiving things directly, conceptualizing is avoided. In other words, in seeing with the whole mind, intuitively, the apparent seer disappears, and the seeing becomes the seen.

The visitor then got up, paid his respects to Maharaj with considerably more devotion and submission than was shown by him on his arrival. He looked into Maharaj's eyes and smiled. When Maharaj asked him why he was smiling, he said he was reminded of a saying in English: 'They came to scoff, and remained to pray!'