No Effort Needed

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[In response to a question about effort to understand]

There is no question of any efforts being made by anyone. That which is is to be understood, is self-effulgent. It does not need anybody's help to exist, and is merely to be understood. And when it is understood, it will also be clear that I am the dawn, I am the afternoon, I am the evening, I am the night. I am the good, I am the bad. And what is to be understood is that if consciousness is not there, the world is not there. And I am not the consciousness; I am apart from it. Although consciousness is so very important - for if there were no consciousness there would be no world, there would be nothing - yet I am not that.

Visitor: But even coming to this insight requires effort. Why does Maharaj say there is no effort to be made?

M: Now that you know that you are, you are sitting here, you know that you exist, you have that sentience. The knowledge that you are alive, that you exist, do you understand it through any effort?

V: No.

M: Your question is wholly correct from the point of view of this world; that is, unless you work there is no fruit, you can't eat. So from the worldly point of view, your question is correct. But I don't belong to this world! And in the world, this "I am ness" is just there, without any efforts on anyone's part.

V: Maharaj, I am a teacher by profession. In theory, I accept this fully and even seethe logic of it. The problems is that knowing this theoretically is one thing, but actually being it and feeling it quite another. And that is where the trouble lies, and hence the need for effort.

M: Yes, tremendous effort: being very, very still and not doing anything! That is effort - the effort which you made when you were in mother's womb for eight months and in which state neither your parents nor you as such did anything. No effort was made. Whatever grew, grew by itself.

V: I got my answer!