Maharaj on Meditation

[Guest guest]

Question: What is meditation?

 

Maharaj: To be one with THAT because of which we know we exist is

meditation. There are a number of names which have been given to

Gods, all of them represent the same things - they represent this

knowledge that one is, this beingness, consciousness. This knowledge

does not refer to an individual, but to the sense of presence as a

whole. Instead of accepting this knowledge as a total functioning,

one wants to cut up the knowledge into bits and pieces, taking a part

for himself, based on some concept. Any knowledge based on a concept

is not true knowledge...

 

When you are dwelling in this consciousness you see that you are not

doing anything, it is all happening spontaneously. There is no

question of your trying to do anyting. You cannot try to be your

Self, because you are your Self.

 

 

----

 

 

 

Nisargadatta, a realized master of the Tantric Nath lineage, had a

wife and four children and lived in a small apartment in the slums of

Bombay. For many years he supported himself and his family by selling

cheap goods in a small booth on the streets outside his tenement. His

life was a telling parable of the absolute nonduality of Being.

 

 

----

 

 

 

" There is no question of going anywhere, arriving anywhere, or doing

anything; you are there already.

 

" One has to work in the world; naturally, carry on your worldly

affairs, but understand that that which has come about by itself -

that is, this body, mind and consciousness - has appeared in spite of

the fact that nobody has asked for it. .. The life force and the mind

are operating, but the mind will tempt you to believe that it

is " you " . Therefore, understand always that you are the timeless,

spaceless witness. And even if the mind tells you that you are the

one who is acting, don't believe the mind. Always keep your identity

separate from that which is doing the working, thinking and talking.

That which has happened - that is, the apparatus which is

functioning - has come upon your original essence, but you are not

that apparatus. "

 

 

----

 

 

 

" The Self is nothing else but the knowledge that 'you are'.

Meditate on that principle by which you know 'you are' and

on account of which you experience the world. Meditate on

this knowledge 'you are', which is the Consciousness, and

abide therein. "

 

----

 

 

Q: What gives you the courage to transcend in the nothingness which

you know is

there?

 

M: Your deep urge to understand the Self. Receding only means to go

within,

your normal inclination is to come out through the five senses and

see the

world. Now reverse; I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not

the senses;

now you are stabilized in consciousness. After stabilizing in

consciousness

all further things will happen automatically. You expand into the

manifest.

I was, I am, I shall be in that original state before the " I Amness "

came.

 

From PRIOR TO CONSCIOUSNESS

Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Edited by Jean Dunn

The Acorn Press

 

Reposted from: http://www.sentient.org/nis.htm