What Am I to Do?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: Listen Sir. I am coming to you because I am in trouble. I am a poor soul lost in a world I do not understand. I am afraid of Mother Nature who wants me to grow, procreate and die. When I ask for the meaning and purpose of all this, she does not answer. I have come to you because I was told that you are kind and wise. You talk about the changeable as false and transient and this I can understand. But when you talk of the immutable, I feel lost. ‘Not this, not that, beyond knowledge, of no use’ -- why talk of it all? Does it exist, or is it a concept only, a verbal opposite to the changeable?

M: It is, it alone is. But in your present state it is of no use to you. Just like the glass of water near your bed is of no use to you when you dream that you are dying of thirst in a desert. I am trying to wake you up, whatever your dream.

Q: Please don’t tell me that I am dreaming and that I will soon wake up. I wish it were so. But I am awake and in pain. You talk of a painless state, but you add that I cannot have it in my present condition. I feel lost.

M: Don't feel lost. I only say that to find the immutable and blissful you must give up your hold on the mutable and painful. You are concerned with your own happiness and I am telling you that there is no such thing. Happiness is never your own, it is where the "I" is not. I do not say it is beyond your reach; you only have to reach out beyond yourself, and you will find it.

Q: If I have to go beyond myself, why did I get the  I AM idea in the first instance?

M: The mind needs to draw a circle. The circle may grow bigger and with every increase there will be a change in the sense  I AM. A man who took himself in hand, a yogi, will draw a spiral, yet the centre will remain, however vast the spiral. A day comes when the entire enterprise is seen as false and given up. The central point is no more and the universe becomes the centre.

Q: Yes, maybe. But what am I to do?

M: Assiduously watch your ever-changing life, probe deeply into the motives beyond your actions and you will soon prick the bubble in which you are enclosed. A chic needs the shell to grow, but a day comes when the shell must be broken. If it is not, there will be suffering and death.

Q: Do you mean to say that if I do not take to yoga, I am doomed to extinction?

M: There is the Guru who will come to your rescue. In the meantime be satisfied with watching the flow of your life; if your watchfulness is deep and steady, ever turned towards the source, it will gradually move upstream till suddenly it becomes the source. Put your awareness to work, not your mind. The mind is not the right instrument for this task. The timeless can be reached only by the timeless. Your body and your mind are both subject to time; only awareness is timeless, even in the now. In awareness you are facing facts and reality is fond of facts.

Q: You rely entirely on my awareness to take me over and not on the Guru and God.

M: God gives the body and the mind and the Guru shows the way to use them. But returning to the source is your own task.

Q: God has created me, he will look after me.

M: There are innumerable gods, each in his own universe. They create and re-create eternally. Are you going to wait for them to save you? What you need for salvation is already within your reach. Use it. Investigate what you know to its very end and you will reach the unknown layers of your being. Go further and the unexpected will explode in you and shatter all.

Q: Does it mean death?

M: It means life - at last.