Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: Were you genuinely free of desire and knowledge, or did you impersonate a jnani according to the image given to you by your Guru?
M: I was not given any image, nor did I have one. My Guru never told me what to expect.
Q: More things may happen to you. Are you at the end of your journey?
M: There was never any journey. I am, as I always was.
Q: What was the Supreme Reality you were supposed to reach?
M: I was undeceived, that is all. I used to create a world and populate it - now I don't do it anymore.
Q: Where do you live, then?
M: In the void beyond being and non-being, beyond consciousness. This void is also fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man saying: 'I have done my work, there is nothing left to do.'
Q: You are giving a certain date to your realization. It means something did happen to you at that date. What happened?
M: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and ceaseless search stopped - I wanted nothing, expected nothing - accepted nothing as my own. There was no 'me' left to strive for. Even the bare 'I am' faded away. The other thing that I noticed was that I lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that 'I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make. Take the idea 'I was born'. You may take it to be true. It is not. You were never born, nor do you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you became mortal. Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world. Look closely, and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can said to be, not its transformations.
In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper. An the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving, and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of immensity of light in the body, as the sense 'I am'. There is only light, all else appears.
Q: Were you genuinely free of desire and knowledge, or did you impersonate a jnani according to the image given to you by your Guru?
M: I was not given any image, nor did I have one. My Guru never told me what to expect.
Q: More things may happen to you. Are you at the end of your journey?
M: There was never any journey. I am, as I always was.
Q: What was the Supreme Reality you were supposed to reach?
M: I was undeceived, that is all. I used to create a world and populate it - now I don't do it anymore.
Q: Where do you live, then?
M: In the void beyond being and non-being, beyond consciousness. This void is also fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man saying: 'I have done my work, there is nothing left to do.'
Q: You are giving a certain date to your realization. It means something did happen to you at that date. What happened?
M: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and ceaseless search stopped - I wanted nothing, expected nothing - accepted nothing as my own. There was no 'me' left to strive for. Even the bare 'I am' faded away. The other thing that I noticed was that I lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that 'I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make. Take the idea 'I was born'. You may take it to be true. It is not. You were never born, nor do you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you became mortal. Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world. Look closely, and you will see that all names and forms are but transitory waves on the ocean of consciousness, that only consciousness can said to be, not its transformations.
In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like the pen writing on paper. An the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving, and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of immensity of light in the body, as the sense 'I am'. There is only light, all else appears.
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