I AM THAT: CHAPTER 3 THE LIVING PRESENT

[Guest guest]

3 THE LIVING PRESENT PG3

 

Q: As I can see, there is nothing wrong with my body nor with my real

being. Both are not of my making and need not be improved upon. What

has gone wrong is the `inner body', call it mind, consciousness,

whatever the name.

M: What do you consider to be wrong with your mind?

 

Q: It is restless, greedy of the pleasant and afraid of the

unpleasant.

M: What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the

unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life

flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets

stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I

mean acceptance – letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire

not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you

are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the

observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the

all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression. 6

 

Q: Yet, between the body and the self there lies a cloud of thoughts

and feelings, which neither serve the body nor the self. These

thoughts and feelings are flimsy, transient and meaningless, mere

mental dust that blinds and chokes, yet they are there, obscuring and

destroying.

M: Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself.

Nor can the anticipation. There is something exceptional, unique,

about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not

have. There is the `stamp of reality' on the actual, which the past

and future do not have. 6

 

Q: What give the present that `stamp of reality " ?

M: There is nothing peculiar in the present event to make it

different from the past and future. For a moment the past was actual

and the future will become so. What makes the present so different?

Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the

present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in

memory, the future – in imagination. There is nothing in the present

event itself! That makes it stand out as real. It may be some simple,

periodical occurrence, like the striking of the clock. In spite of

our knowing that the successive strokes are identical, the presence

stroke is quite different from the previous one and the next – as

remembered, or expected. A thing focussed in the now is with me, for

I am ever present; it is my own reality that impart to the present

event. 7

Q: But we deal with things remembered as if they were real.

M: We consider memories, only when they come into the present. The

forgotten is not counted until one is reminded – which implies

bringing into the now. 7

 

Q: Yes, I can see there is in the now some unknown factor that gives

momentary reality to the transient actuality.

M: You need not say it is unknown, for you see it in constant

operation. Since you were born, has it ever changed? Things and

thoughts have been changing all the time. But the feeling that what

is now is real has never changed, even in dream. 7

 

Q: In deep sleep there is no experience of the present reality.

M: The blankness of deep sleep is due entirely to the lack of

specific memories. But a general memory of well-being is there. There

is a difference in feeling when we say `I was deeply asleep' from `I

was absent'. 7

 

Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life's source

and life's expression (which is the body), there is the mind and its

ever-changeful states. The stream of mental states is endless,

meaningless and painful. Pain is the constant factor. What we call

pleasure is but a gap, an interview between two painful states.

Desire and fear are the weft and warp of living, and both are made of

pain. Our question is: can there be a happy mind?

 

M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain.

Both make the mind restless. Moments of pleasure are merely gaps in

the stream of pain. How can the mind be happy? 8

 

Q: That is true when we desire pleasure or expect pain. But there are

moments of unexpected, unanticipated joy. Pure joy, uncontaminated by

desire – un-soughts, undeserved, God-given.

 

M: Still, joy is joy only against a background of pain.

Q: Is pain a cosmic fact, or purely mental?

M: The universe is complete and where there is completeness, where

nothing lacks, what can give pain?

 

Q: The universe may be complete as a whole, but incomplete in details.

M: A part of the whole seen in relation to the whole is also

complete. Only when seen in isolation it becomes deficient and thus a

seat of pain. What makes for isolation?

Q: Limitations of the mind, of course. The mind cannot see the whole

for the part.

M: Good enough. The mind, by its very nature, divides and opposes.

Can there be some other mind, which unites and harmonizes, which sees

the whole in the part and the parts as totally related to the whole?

 

Q: The other mind – where to look for it?

M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind. In

ending the mental process as we know it. When this comes to an end,

that mind is born.

 

Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?

M: Not as we know them, as desirable or repugnant. It becomes rather

a question of love seeking expression and meeting with obstacles. The

inclusive mind is love in action, battling against circumstances,

initially frustrated, ultimately victorious.

 

Q: Between the sprit and the body, is it love that provides the

bridge?

M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the hearts crosses it.

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta, ameyhng@a... wrote:

 

> Q: Between the sprit and the body, is it love that provides the

> bridge?

> M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the hearts crosses it.

 

Sometimes Maharaj uses the link as love and sometimes as

consciousness.

 

Thanks,

 

Hur

 

" Once I thought I could give up this longing, but then again I could

not continue being human. " --Rumi