The Experience of Nothingness

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

V: I know the experience of the nothingness, and I just wanted to know where do I go from here?

M: In hat nothingness, what is present? That "you" which has been present in that nothingness and has had the experience of nothingness, who or what is that? Someone or something has had the experience of nothingness; now what is that someone or something?

V: Complete emptiness

M: What is that experience itself? Does it have a shape or form?

V: I can't think of any shape or form for it.

M: That which has no shape or form, is that you?

V: I don't know. I have only had this experience and I feel every thought and everything else was just a lot of rubbish. Everything in the world is just a lot of nonsense, it has no meaning. The only thing I have got is "nothing", that is the only thing that has meaning. I can't express it.

M: That is all right. But in the balance of all this experience and no-experience, what is it that you think you are? What is your knowledge about your own identity? What result have you got? What is the balance sheet? Ultimately, what is the conclusion you have arrived at about your self? Is there something at all or are you also nothing?

V: I am nothing.

M: Don't use the word "I". But what is it that is nothing?

V: I don't know.

M: Have you done any meditation?

V: There was a seminar of EST, a four-day course of continual meditation; I went to one of those and that's where I got the experience of nothingness.

M: What is EST?

V: EST is an organization; it means "to be" in French. It is a regular institution that gives seminars.

M: The answer you have given is correct. But with that answer, there is nothing further that can be said. Have you come to that conclusion with conviction?

V: Yes, I have. You see, I have felt that this nothingness, if it indeed is the ultimate reality that I have been looing for, then I am not happy with it because it does not seem to nurture me.

M: If there is nothingness, then there is nothingness [nothing left of] about an individual either. So who is it who is grumbling, who is not satisfied with the experience, with the nothingness? If there is nothingness, there must be total nothingness. There can't be an individual who is away from it and can still say, "There is nothingness." So hat is this individual, who is not satisfied with the total nothingness, which it is? Who is dissatisfied? Who is grumbling?

In that nothingness, the individual also must be dissolved. Then who is it that is grumbling? Who is it that is not satisfied?

V: Oh grumbling means - there is no interest now in doing anything or fighting the battles of life as we used todo before, like warriors.

Interpreter (I): So that individual has been dissolved?

V: There is nothing, absolutely nothing.

I: Then where is the dissatisfaction? Dissatisfaction must be felt by somebody!

V: How can one live in this world..

I: But who? That is Maharaj's question!

V: The physical body, the physical manifestation. How can it live and how can it survive on this earth with a form if all the time it has got this concept of complete nothingness?

M: I come back to the same thing. What is it that has to do anything in this nothingness? What is it that is left in this nothingness who has to do anything?

V: Perhaps this nothingness was only a beginning, and was just a quest like everything else.

M: Something has turned into nothingness. What is that something that has turned into nothingness? This consciousness that I am, that I exist, that concept itself has turned into nothingness. So what is left? Who is left?

V: Nothing is left.

M: The answer is 100% correct. But I wanted to find out how steady you are in that nothingness. What is or is not, don't argue about that; we can only talk about what has happened to you. And you as an individual or the conscious presence has been dissolved into nothingness. That is all you can say.

Once you are in that situation, there is nothing; whatever work you do, whatever your behavior, is the work and behavior of that child of a barren woman, that does not exist as an individual.