Satsang with Nome - Nonobjective Realization - Q & A 1

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Posted on PracticeofSelfInquiry

 

Q.: You said that the Self is the only Being. That means that there

is no other being. We need to know nothing else. Your wonderfully

clear presentation of the teaching makes it hard to be mistaken about

what is and about who we are.

 

N.: In general, it is very difficult to be mistaken about who we are.

Anyone who seems to be mistaken is subject to difficulties.

 

Q.: And should ask who it is who is making the mistakes or some

similar inner question.

 

N.: If that happens, the mistakes vanish, because all of the

mistakes, the errors of delusion, are based on non-inquiry, non-

knowledge.

 

Q.: Part of my practice now is to make all of the daily life

activities items for inquiry. So, for me, I am seeing the

identification as the actor. Driving here, I ask myself, "Who is

driving?" Driving goes on just fine, but the attention is within, and

the identification as the driver seems to go away.

 

N.: That is right. You cannot simultaneously be the knower and the

actor. This has been pointed out several times by Sankara. He says

that one cannot have the action and the knowledge occurring

simultaneously. The understanding of what he is indicating is found

in the inquiry. How can you be the doer and the knower

simultaneously? If you are always the knower, you can never be the

doer, or actor. Your body acts, but you know about it. Always, you

are knowing. All the activities of your body, senses, and mind, and

whatever else is involved, are entirely the known. All of them are

shining in the light of that original Knowledge, which is perpetual.

You have never been an actor.

 

Q.: If I have a sense of breathing, I can ask, "Who is breathing?" If

gardening, I can ask, "Who is gardening?" It seems different,

thought, if I ask, "Who is the inquirer?"

 

N.: If you ask who the inquirer is, everything is swallowed up. As

for breathing, gardening, driving and such, all of these pertain to

the actions of your limbs, your body, your prana, and with those

things that are considered mental or intellectual activities, they

are activities of your mind or intellect. Like all activities, they

appear and disappear. They have a beginning and an end. Like all

activities, they are objective to you. They are something known. The

known, the transient, cannot possibly be you. Whatever is not you at

one time cannot be you at some other time. What you are you always

are. What is not the Self is never the Self. Your nature does not

change.

 

Q.: It does not change.

 

N.: So, did you really drive here this morning? (laughter) You are;

you always are. Remain as That.

 

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Not two,

Richard