Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Questioner: You were saying the other day that at the root of your realization was the trust in your Guru. He assured you that you were already the Absolute Reality and there was nothing more to be done. You trusted him and left it at that, without straining, without striving. Now, my question is: without trust in your Guru would you have realized? After all, what you are, You are, whether your mind trusts or not; would doubt obstruct the action of the Guru's words and make them inoperative?
Maharaj: You have said it - they would have been made inoperative - for a time.
Q: And what would happen to the energy, or power in the Guru's words?
M: It would remain latent, unmnifested. But the entire question is based on a misunderstanding. The master, the disciple, the love and trust between them, these are one fact, not so many independent facts. Each is a part of the other. Without love and trust there would have been no Guru or disciple, and no relationship between them. It is like pressing a switch to light an electric lamp. It is because the lamp, the wiring, the switch, the transformer, the transmission lines and the power house form a single whole, that you get the light. Any one factor missing and there would be no light. You must not separate the inseparable. Words do not create facts: they either describe them or distort. The fact is always non-verbal.
Q: I still do not understand; can the Guru's words remain unfulfilled or will it invariably prove true?
M: Words of a realized man never miss their purpose. They wait for the right conditions to arise which may take some time, and this is natural, for there is a season for sowing and a season for harvesting. But the words of a Guru is a seed that cannot perish. Of course,the Guru must be a real one, one who is beyond the body and the mind, beyond consciousness itself, beyond space and time, beyond duality and unity, beyond understanding and description. The good people who have read a lot and have a lot to say, may teach you useful things, but they are not the real Gurus whose words invariably come true. They may also tell you that you are the ultimate reality itself but what of it?
Q: Nevertheless, if for some reason I happen to trust them and obey, shall I be the loser?
M: If you are able to trust and obey, you will soon find your real Guru or rather, he will find you.
Q: Does every knower of the Self become a Guru, or can one be a knower of Reality without being able to take others to it?
M: If you know what you teach, you can teach what you know. Here, seership and teachership are one. But the Absolute reality is beyond both. The self-styled Gurus talk of ripeness and effort of merits and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental formations, projections of addicted mind. Instead of helping, they obstruct.
Q: How can I make out who to follow and who to mistrust?
M: Mistrust all, until you are convinced. The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will be estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples.
Q: You said that reality is beyond the knowledge and the teaching of the real. Is not the knowledge of reality the supreme itself and teaching the proof of its attainment?
M: The knowledge of the real, or the self, is a state of mind. Teaching another is a movement of duality. They concern the mind only; sattva is a guna all the same.
Q: What is real then?
M: He who knows the mind as non-realized and realized, who knows ignorance and knowledge as states of mind, he is the real. When you are given diamonds mixed with gravel, you may either miss the diamonds or find them. It is the seeing that matters. Where is the greyness of the gravel and the beauty of the diamond, without the power to see? The known is but a shape and knowledge is but a name. The knower is but a state of mind. The real is beyond.
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