Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: Is there any progress in the witness? Does awareness evolve?
M: What is seen may undergo many changes when the light of awareness is focused on it, but it is the object that changes, not the light. Plants grow in sunlight, but the sun does not grow. By themselves both the body and the witness are motionless, but when brought together in the mind, both appear to move.
Q: Yes, I can see that what moves and changes is the I AM only. Is the I AM needed at all?
M:Who needs it? It is there - now. It had a beginning and it will have an end.
Q: What remains when the I AM goes?
M: What does not come and go - remains. It is the ever greedy mind that creates ideas of progress and evolution towards perfection. It disturbs and talks of order, destroys and seeks security.
Q: Is there progress in destiny, in karma?
M: Karma is only a store of unspent energies, of unfulfilled desires and fears not understood. The store is being constantly replenished by new desires and fears. It need not be so forever. Understand the root cause of your fears - estrangement from yourself: and of desires - the longing for the self, and your karma will dissolve like a dream. Between earth and heaven life goes on. Nothing is affected, only bodies grow and decay.
Q: Between the person and the witness, what is the relation?
M: There can be no relation between them because they are one. Don't separate and look for relationship.
Q: If the seer and the seen are one, how did the separation occur?
M: Fascinated by names and forms, which are by their very nature distinct and diverse, you distinguish what is natural and separate what is one. The world is rich in diversity, but your feeling strange and frightened is due to misapprehension. It is the body that is in danger, not you.
Q: I can see that the basic biological anxiety, the flight instinct, takes many shapes and distorts my thoughts and feelings. But how did this anxiety come into being?
M: It is a mental state caused by the 'I am the body' idea. It can be removed by the contrary idea: 'I am not the body'. Both the ideas are false, but one removes the other. Realize that no ideas are your own, they all come to you from outside. You must think it all out for yourself, become yourself the object of your meditation. The effort to understand yourself is yoga. Be a yogi, give your life to it, brood, wonder, search, till you come to the root of error and to the truth beyond the error.
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