Who is to go anywhere?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Visitor: When the basic concept is "I am nothing," how can the world move? That is what I am trying to express.

M: If you had come to the conclusion that you are not, then how can any further concept or any further question arise? If you had really come to the firm conclusion that I AMness is no longer there, how can any further question arise at all?

V: That means there is nothing further than that?

M: Everything that is there, it is fullness and it is nothingness. So long as I do not have the I AMness, I no loner have the concept that I am in individual. Then my individuality has merged into this everythingness or nothingness and everything is all right.

V: But there is no everythingness, it is nothingness. I do not get the feeling of everythingness. That is what I am trying to say.

M: So if there is nothingness, then who is to do anything anyway? Assuming that there is nothingness, who is there to search for anything, even everythingness? In that nothingness, you are also not there. Then who is it that wants anything more than this?

V: I don't know.

M: Again the answer that you don't know is a 100% correct because in that state where you did not know, you did not even know that you existed. And this I AMness has come subsequently without your wanting it. And whatever knowledge you have now has been accumulating since the arrival of this I AMness. But in your original state, the not-knowing is there.

V: The problem is where do I go from here?

M: Who? The question is "who" is to go anywhere? It started with the whole thing and the circle is now complete. In that nothingness, we are also nothingness. So who is to go anywhere? For whome are there any more questions left? In that nothingness, anything is nothingness. You are also nothingness.

Your question is very much like the child of a childless couple asking, "Where do I go from here?" Where is he to go? And from where has he come? I will continue with the same old simile. A very old couple are held in great esteem, love and reverence by all their acquaintances. So the couple dies. all the acquaintances decide that they must do something for the child. But the child has not been born. For whom could they do something?

Once the knowledge of the self dawns, there is no longer any question of good or bad, suffering or not suffering, happiness or unhappiness; the question just does not arise.