to Elizabeth (El)

[Guest guest]

Dear Elizabeth,

 

Your note struck me dumb. I work a night shift job and I thought

about it during the night.

 

Do you have the certainty now that Nisargadatta speaks of? Did things

come effortlessly as he describes?

 

Do you agree that trying to stop suffering in the world

through " careers " is futile as he often remarks? (I understand it's

more complicated or simple than that.)

 

I am 32 and have already burned out from one career, elementary

teaching. When I read I Am That, I feel a recognition when one of

those frequent questioners comes to Nisargardatta who is bent on

saving the world. I feel like that a lot. I probably seem just as

strange too, to an outsider. I'm worried sometimes that when I

realize what I really am, I will drop all my wonderful ideas for how

to help people.

 

What can you say, El, after your lifetime of careers, to someone like

me who is just embarking on most of his? I feel that if I kept single-

minded earnestness on Maharaj's teachings, I could realize my Self

within a few years, but so much else calls to me too. Here I am with

no decent source of income, truly wanting to marry someone who I have

not met yet, and filled with wonderful aspirations and project ideas.

I feel caught between my longtime desire to realize and my desire to

first achieve some of the common joys so many seem to have.

 

How old are you now, El, if you don't mind my asking? I want to

picture you. I remember that Ramana Maharshi refused to talk for many

years after his realization. Nisargadatta doesn't speak of such a

period for himself (at least in the one book I am familiar with). How

did you survive for so long without communication in the ordinary

sense? Does it matter to you anymore?

 

David