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Nisargadatta:
I don't get flustered. I just do the needful. I do
not worry about the future. A right response to
every situation is in my nature. I do not stop to
think what to do. I act and move on. Results do not
affect me. I do not even care, whether they are
good or bad. Whatever they are, they are – if
they come back to me, I deal with them afresh. Or,
rather, I happen to deal with them afresh. There is
no sense of purpose in my doing anything. Things
happens as they happen – not because I make
them happen, but it is because I am that they
happen. In reality nothing ever happens. When the
mind is restless, it makes Shiva dance, like the
restless waters of the lake make the moon dance. It
is all appearance, due to wrong ideas.
Question: Surely, you are aware of many
things and behave according to their nature. You
treat a child as a child and an adult as an
adult.
Nisargadatta: Just as the taste of salt
pervades the great ocean and every single drop of
sea-water carries the same flavour, so every
experience gives me the touch of Reality, the ever
fresh realisation of my own Being.
Question: Do I exist in your world, as you
exist in mine?
Nisargadatta: Of course, you are and I am.
But only as points in consciousness; we are nothing
apart from consciousness. This must be well
grasped: the world hangs on the thread of
consciousness; no consciousness, no world.
Question: There are many points in
consciousness; are there as many worlds?
Nisargadatta: Take dream for an example. In
a hospital there may be many patients, all
sleeping, all dreaming, each dreaming his own
private, personal dreams unrelated, unaffected,
having one single factor in common – illness.
Similarly, we have divorced ourselves in our
imagination from the real world of common
experience and enclosed ourselves in a cloud of
personal desire and fears, images and thoughts,
ideas and concepts.
Question: This I can understand. But what
could be the cause of the tremendous variety of the
personal worlds?
Nisargadatta: The variety is not so great.
All the dreams are superimposed over a common
world. To some extent they shape and influence each
other. The basic unity operates in spite of all. At
the root of it all lies Self-forgetfulness; not
knowing who I am.
Question: To forget, one must know. Did I
know who I am, before I forgot it?
Nisargadatta: Of course. Self-forgetting is
inherent in Self-knowing. Consciousness and
unconsciousness are two aspects of one life. They
co-exist. To know the world you forget the Self
– to know the Self you forget the world. What
is world after all? A collection of memories. Cling
to one thing, that matters, hold on to "I am" and
let go all else. This is sadhana. In realisation
there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to
forget. Everything is known, nothing is
remembered.
Question: What is the cause of
Self-forgetting?
Nisargadatta: There is no cause, because
there is no forgetting. Mental states succeed one
another, and each obliterates the previous one.
Self-remembering is a mental state and
Self-forgetting is another. They alternate like day
and night. Reality is beyond both.
Question: Surely there must be a difference
between forgetting and not knowing. Not knowing
needs no cause. Forgetting presupposes previous
knowledge and also the tendency or ability to
forget. I admit I cannot enquire into the reason
for not-knowing, but forgetting must have some
ground.
Nisargadatta: There is no such thing as
not-knowing. There is only forgetting. What is
wrong with forgetting? It is as simple to forget as
to remember.
Question: Is it not a calamity to forget
one's Self?
Nisargadatta: As bad as to remember one's
Self continuously. There is a state beyond
forgetting and not-forgetting – the natural
state. To remember, to forget – these are all
states of mind, thought-bound, word-bound. Take for
example, the idea of being born. I am told I was
born. I do not remember. I am told I shall die I do
not expect it. You tell me I have forgotten, or I
lack imagination. But I just cannot remember what
never happened, nor expect the patently impossible.
Bodies are born and bodies die, but what is it to
me? Bodies come and go in consciousness and
consciousness itself has its roots in me. I am life
and mine are mind and body.
Question: You say at the root of the world
is Self-forgetfulness. To forget I must remember.
What did I forget to remember? I have not forgotten
that I am.
Nisargadatta: This "I am" too may be a part
of the illusion.
Question: How can it be? You cannot prove to
me that I am not. Even when convinced that I am not
– I am.
Nisargadatta: Reality can neither be proved
nor disproved. Within the mind you cannot, beyond
the mind you need not. In the Real, the question,
"What is real?" does not arise. The manifested
[saguna] and Unmanifested [Nirguna]
are not different.
Question: In that case all is real.
Nisargadatta: I am all. As my Self all is
real. Apart from me, nothing is real.
Question: I do not feel that the world is
the result of a mistake.
Nisargadatta: You may say so only after a
full investigation, not before. Of course, when you
discern and let go all that is unreal, what remains
is real.
Question: Does anything remain?
Nisargadatta: The Real remains. But don't be
mislead by words!
Question: Since immemorial time, during
innumerable births, I build and improve and
beautify my world. It is neither perfect, nor
unreal. It is a process.
Nisargadatta: You are mistaken. The world
has no existence apart from you. At every moment it
is but a reflection of your Self. You create it,
you destroy it.
Question: And build it again, improved.
Nisargadatta: To improve it, you must
disprove it. One must die to live. There is no
rebirth, except through death.
Question: Your universe may be perfect. My
personal universe is improving.
Nisargadatta: Your personal universe does
not exist by itself. It is merely a limited and
distorted view of the Real. It is not the universe
that needs improving, but your way of looking.
Question: How do you view it?
Nisargadatta: It is a stage on which a world
drama is being played. The quality of the
performance is all that matters; not what the
actors say and do, but how they say and do it.
Question: I do not like this lila
[play] idea I would rather compare the
world to a work-yard in which we are the
builders.
Nisargadatta: You take it too seriously.
What is wrong with play? You have a purpose only as
long as you are not complete [purna]; till
then completeness, perfection, is the purpose. But
when you are complete in your Self, fully
integrated within and without, then you enjoy the
universe; you do not labour at it. To the
disintegrated you may seem working hard, but that
is their illusion. Sportsmen seem to make
tremendous efforts: yet their sole motive is to
play and display.
Question: Do you mean to say that God is
just having fun, that he is engaged in purposeless
action?
Nisargadatta: God is not only true and good,
he is also beautiful
[satyam-shivam-sundaram]. He creates beauty
– for the joy of it.
Question: Well, then beauty is his
purpose!
Nisargadatta:
Why do you introduce purpose? Purpose implies
movement, change, a sense of imperfection. God does
not aim at beauty – whatever he does is
beautiful. Would you say that a flower is trying to
be beautiful? It is beautiful by its very nature.
Similarly God is perfection itself, not an effort
at perfection.
Question: The purpose fulfils itself in
beauty.
Nisargadatta: What is beautiful? Whatever is
perceived blissfully is beautiful. Bliss is the
essence of beauty.
Question: You speak of Sat-chit-ananda. That
I am is obvious. That I know is obvious. That I am
happy is not at all obvious. Where has my happiness
gone?
Nisargadatta: Be fully aware of your own
Being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because
you take your mind for yourself and make it dwell
on what you are not, you lose your sense of
well-being.
Question: There are two paths before us
– the path of effort [Yoga marga], and
the path of ease [bhoga marga]. Both lead
to the same goal – liberation.
Nisargadatta: Why do you call bhoga a path?
How can ease bring you perfection?
Question: The perfect renouncer
[yogi] will find Reality. The perfect
enjoyer [bhogi] also will come to it.
Nisargadatta: How can it be? Aren't they
contradictory?
Question: The extremes meet. To be a perfect
bhogi is more difficult than to be a perfect yogi.
I am a humble man and cannot venture judgements of
value. Both the yogi and the bhogi, after all, are
concerned with the search for happiness. The yogi
wants it permanent, the bhogi is satisfied with the
intermittent. Often the bhogi strives harder than
the yogi.
Nisargadatta: What is your happiness worth
when you have to strive and labour for it? True
happiness is spontaneous and effortless.
Question: All beings seek happiness. The
means only differ. Some seek it within and are
therefore called yogis; some seek it without and
are condemned as bhogis. Yet they need each
other.
Nisargadatta: Pleasure and pain alternate.
Happiness is unshakable. What you can seek and find
is not the real thing. Find what you have never
lost, find the inalienable.
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