Scrub the Mind

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: Does creation come before investigation?

M: First you create a world, then the I AM becomes a person who is not happy for various reasons. He goes out in search of happiness, meets a Guru who tells him: 'You are not a person, find who you are'. He does it and goes beyond.

Q: Why did he not do it at the very start?

M: It did not occur to him. He needed somebody to tell him.

Q:Was that enough?

M: It was enough.

Q: Why does it not work in my case?

M: You do not trust me.

Q: Why is my faith weak?

M: Desires and fears have dulled your mind. It needs some scrubbing.

Q: How can I clear my mind?

M: By watching it relentlessly. Inattention obscures, attention clarifies.

Q: Why do the Indian teachers advocate inactivity?

M: Most f people's activities are valueless, if not outright destructive. Dominated by desire and fear, they can do nothing good. Ceasing to do evil precedes beginning to do good. Hence the need for stopping all activities for a time, to investigate one's urges and their motives, see all that is false in one's life, purge the mind all evil and then only restart work, beginning with one's obvious duties. Of course, if you have a chance to help somebody, by all means do it and promptly too, don't keep him waiting till you are perfect. But do not become a professional do-gooder.

Q: I do not feel there are too many do-gooders among disciples. Most of those I met are too absorbed in their own petty conflicts. They have no heart for others.

M: Such self-centredness is temporary. Be patient with such people. For so many years they gave attention to everything but themselves. Let them turn to themselves for a change.

Q: What are the fruits of self-awareness?

M: You grow more intelligent. In awareness you learn. In self-awareness you learn about yourself. Of course, you can only learn what you are not. To know who you are, you must go beyond the mind.

Q: Is not awareness beyond the mind?

M: Awareness is the point at which the mind reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek not what pleases, but what is true.

Q: I find that awareness brings about a state of inner silence, a state of psychic void.

M: It is all right as it goes, but it is not enough. Have you felt the all-embracing emptiness in which the universe swims like a cloud in the blue sky?

Q: Sir, let me first come to know well my own inner space.

M: Destroy the wall that separates, the I-am-the-body idea, and the inner and the outer will become one.