The Basic Problem

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: A very important point here. To my mind, a city or a nation comprises only the individuals who make it up.

M: A name may have been given by individuals; but that which has been created, has man created it? Out of five elements, man is born. But has man created the five elements? The five elements have been created out of that consciousness, which is in the individual body.

Q: The universal consciousness and this consciousness within me, are they the same?

M: The light which is perceived by your eyes and the light which is generally seen, as reflected in various manifestations, are they different?

To repeat: The whole problem lies in identification with the individual body and consequently with the individual. Therefore, the individual is ever afraid of death - death of the individual.

Are there any questions on this subject?

You are this consciousness. And out of this consciousness is born the entire universe. We consider ourselves as individuals and that which is unlimited, we have limited to an insignificant thing. The infinite is narrowed down to a single body. That is our whole problem.

Now there is also this question: If it is the same universal consciousness that appears in millions of human beings, why do they act in all contrary manners, creating all kinds of chaos? If one woman has ten children, they are all born from the same parents, but do they not act in remarkably contrary ways? Why is that? Because, although constituted from the same five elements, the composition of each individual, resulting from different proportions - permutations and combinations - of these elements, is quite different. Thus each person acts in a different way. Or, to use a different analogy, the metal may be the same but the purposes for which that metal has been converted into different instruments are widely different - each instrument may be used for a particular purpose. So the ingredients are the five elements but the eventual object created from different combinations of those ingredients is bound to act uniquely according to its composition.