Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: Am I to die?
M: Physical death is meaningless. It is the clinging to sensate life that binds you. If you could experience the inner void fully, the explosion into the totality would be near.
Q: My own spiritual experience has its seasons. Sometimes I feel glorious, then again I am down. I am like a little boy - going up, going down, going up, going down.
M: All changes in consciousness are due to the 'I am the body' idea. Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realize it you must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing, is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don't complain that you made no progress. All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully.
Q: The other day you told us that there is no such thing as karma. Yet we see that every thing has a cause and the sum total of all the causes may be called karma.
M: As long as you believe yourself to be a body, you will ascribe causes to everything. I do not say things have no causes. Each thing has innumerable causes. It is as it is, because the world is as it is. Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe.
When you realize that you are absolutely free to be what you consent to be, that you are what you appear to be because of ignorance or indifference, you are free to revolt and change. You allow yourself to be what you are not. You are looking for the causes of being what you are not! It is a futile search. There are no causes, but your ignorance of your real being, which is perfect and beyond all causation. For whatever happens, all the universe is responsible and you are the source of the universe.
Q: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.
M: Because you do not investigate. Enquire, search within and you will know.
Q: How can a speck like me create the vast universe?
M: When you are infected with the I-am-the-body virus, a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you miss the essential which is the elimination of the person.
Q: In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-
enquiry.
M: If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time. You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the yogas, it is the simplest and the shortest.
Q: Am I to die?
M: Physical death is meaningless. It is the clinging to sensate life that binds you. If you could experience the inner void fully, the explosion into the totality would be near.
Q: My own spiritual experience has its seasons. Sometimes I feel glorious, then again I am down. I am like a little boy - going up, going down, going up, going down.
M: All changes in consciousness are due to the 'I am the body' idea. Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realize it you must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing, is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don't complain that you made no progress. All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully.
Q: The other day you told us that there is no such thing as karma. Yet we see that every thing has a cause and the sum total of all the causes may be called karma.
M: As long as you believe yourself to be a body, you will ascribe causes to everything. I do not say things have no causes. Each thing has innumerable causes. It is as it is, because the world is as it is. Every cause in its ramifications covers the universe.
When you realize that you are absolutely free to be what you consent to be, that you are what you appear to be because of ignorance or indifference, you are free to revolt and change. You allow yourself to be what you are not. You are looking for the causes of being what you are not! It is a futile search. There are no causes, but your ignorance of your real being, which is perfect and beyond all causation. For whatever happens, all the universe is responsible and you are the source of the universe.
Q: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.
M: Because you do not investigate. Enquire, search within and you will know.
Q: How can a speck like me create the vast universe?
M: When you are infected with the I-am-the-body virus, a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you miss the essential which is the elimination of the person.
Q: In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-
enquiry.
M: If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time. You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the yogas, it is the simplest and the shortest.
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