Earnestness and Determination Needed

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?

M: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru. And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji. What is your opinion of him?

M: What a question to ask! The space in Bombay is asked what is its opinion of the space in Poona. The names differ, but not the space. The word 'Babaji; is merely an address. Who lives under the address? You ask question when you are in trouble. Enquire who is giving trouble and to whom.

Q: I understand everybody is under the obligation to realize. Is it his duty, or his destiny?

M: Realization is of the fact that you are not a person. Therefore, it cannot be the duty of the person whose destiny is to disappear. Its destiny is the duty of him who imagines himself to the person. Find out who he is and the imagined person will dissolve. Freedom is from something. What are you to be free from? Obviously, you must be free from the person, you take yourself to be, for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bondage.

Q: How is the person removed?

M: By determination. Understand that it must go and wish it to go - it shall go if you are earnest about it. Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind. Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly. You may discover that is is not so, that you are not a person bound in space and time. Think of the difference it would make!

Q: If I am not a person, then what am I?

M: Wet cloth looks, feels, smells differently as long as it is wet. When dry it is again the normal cloth. Water has left it and who can make out that it was wet? Your real nature is not like what you appear to be. Give up the idea of being a person, that is all. You need not become what you are anyhow. There is the identity of what you are and there is the person superimposed on it. All you know is the person, the identity - which is not a person - you do not know, for you never doubted, never asked yourself the crucial question - 'Who am I'. The identity is the witness of the person and sadhana consists in shifting the emphasis from the superficial and changeful person to the immutable and ever-present witness.