Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: Compassion implies the existence of an objective world, full of avoidable sorrow.
M: The world is not objective and the sorrow of it is not avoidable. Compassion is but another word for the refusal to suffer for imaginary reasons.
Q: If the reasons are imaginary, why should the suffering be inevitable?
M: It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes you happy - truth liberates.
Q: The truth is that I am a mind imprisoned in a body and this is a very unhappy truth.
M: You are neither the body nor in the body - there is no such thing as body. You have grievously misunderstood yourself; to understand rightly - investigate.
Q: But I was born as a body, in a body and shall die with the body, as a body.
M: This is your misconception. Enquire, investigate, doubt yourself and others. To find truth, you must not cling to your convictions if you are sure of the immediate, you will never reach the ultimate. Your idea that you were born and that you will die is absurd: both logic and experience contradict it.
Q: All right, I shall not insist that I am the body. You have a point here. But here and now, as I talk to you, I am in my body -- obviously. The body may not be me, but it is mine.
M: The entire universe contributes incessantly to your existence. Hence the entire universe is your body. In that sense - I agree.
Q: My body influences me deeply. In more than one way my body is my destiny. My character, my moods, the nature of my reactions, my desires and fears -inborn or acquired - they are all based on the body. A little alcohol, some drug or other and all changes. Until the drug wears off I become another man.
M: All this happens because you think yourself to be the body. Realize your real self and even drugs will have no power over you.
Q: You smoke?
M: My body kept a few habits which may as well continue till it dies. There is no harm in them.
Q: You eat meat?
M: I was born among meat-eating people and my children are eating meat. I eat very little - and make no fuss.
Q: Meat-eating implies killing.
M: Obviously. I make no claims of consistency. You think absolute consistency is possible; prove it by example. Don't preach what you do not practise.
Coming back to the idea of having been born. You are stuck with what your parents told you: all about conception, pregnancy and birth, infant, child, youngster, teenager and so on. Now, divest yourself of the idea that you are the body with the help of the contrary idea that you are not the body. It is also an idea, no doubt; treat it like something to be abandoned when its work is done. The idea that I am not the body gives reality to the body, when in fact, there is no such thing as body, it is but a state of mind. You can have as many bodies and as diverse as you like; just remember steadily what you want and reject the incompatibles.
Q: If the reasons are imaginary, why should the suffering be inevitable?
M: It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes you happy - truth liberates.
Q: The truth is that I am a mind imprisoned in a body and this is a very unhappy truth.
M: You are neither the body nor in the body - there is no such thing as body. You have grievously misunderstood yourself; to understand rightly - investigate.
Q: But I was born as a body, in a body and shall die with the body, as a body.
M: This is your misconception. Enquire, investigate, doubt yourself and others. To find truth, you must not cling to your convictions if you are sure of the immediate, you will never reach the ultimate. Your idea that you were born and that you will die is absurd: both logic and experience contradict it.
Q: All right, I shall not insist that I am the body. You have a point here. But here and now, as I talk to you, I am in my body -- obviously. The body may not be me, but it is mine.
M: The entire universe contributes incessantly to your existence. Hence the entire universe is your body. In that sense - I agree.
Q: My body influences me deeply. In more than one way my body is my destiny. My character, my moods, the nature of my reactions, my desires and fears -inborn or acquired - they are all based on the body. A little alcohol, some drug or other and all changes. Until the drug wears off I become another man.
M: All this happens because you think yourself to be the body. Realize your real self and even drugs will have no power over you.
Q: You smoke?
M: My body kept a few habits which may as well continue till it dies. There is no harm in them.
Q: You eat meat?
M: I was born among meat-eating people and my children are eating meat. I eat very little - and make no fuss.
Q: Meat-eating implies killing.
M: Obviously. I make no claims of consistency. You think absolute consistency is possible; prove it by example. Don't preach what you do not practise.
Coming back to the idea of having been born. You are stuck with what your parents told you: all about conception, pregnancy and birth, infant, child, youngster, teenager and so on. Now, divest yourself of the idea that you are the body with the help of the contrary idea that you are not the body. It is also an idea, no doubt; treat it like something to be abandoned when its work is done. The idea that I am not the body gives reality to the body, when in fact, there is no such thing as body, it is but a state of mind. You can have as many bodies and as diverse as you like; just remember steadily what you want and reject the incompatibles.
No comments:
Post a Comment