All Search for Happiness is Misery

[Guest guest]

Questioner: I have come from England and I am on my way to Madras.

There I shall meet my father and we shall go by car overland to

London. I am to study psychology, but I do not yet know what I shall

do when I get my degree. I may try industrial psychology, or

psychotherapy. My father is a general physician. I may follow the

same line. But this does not exhaust my interests. There are certain

questions which do not change with time. I understand you have some

answers to such questions and this made me come to see you.

 

Nisagardatta Maharaj: I wonder whether I am the right man to answer

your questions. I know little about things and people. I know only

that I am, and that much you also know. We are equals.

 

Q: Of course I know that I am. But I do not know what it means.

 

M: What you take to be the `I' in the `I am' is not you. To know that

your are is natural, to know what you are is the result of much

investigation. You will have to explore the entire field of

consciousness and go beyond it. For this you must find the right

teacher and create the conditions needed for discovery. Generally

speaking, there are two ways: external and internal. Either you live

with somebody who knows the Truth and submit yourself entirely to his

guiding and molding influence, or you seek the inner guide and follow

the inner light wherever it takes you. In both cases your personal

desires and fears must be disregarded. You learn either by proximity

or by investigation, the passive or the active way. You either let

yourself be carried by the river of life and love represented by your

Guru, or you make your own efforts, guided by your inner star. In

both cases you must move on, you must be earnest. Rare are the people

who are lucky to find somebody worthy of trust and love. Most of them

must take the hard way, the way of intelligence and understanding, of

discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya). This is the way open

to all.

 

Q: I am lucky to have come here: though I am leaving tomorrow, one

talk with you may affect my entire life.

 

M: Yes, once you say `I want to find Truth,' all your life will be

deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings

and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a

most radical transformation.

 

Q: Once I have made up my mind to find The Reality, what do I do next?

 

 

M: It depends on your temperament. If you are earnest, whatever way

you choose will take you to your goal. It is the earnestness that is

the decisive factor.

 

Q: What is the source of earnestness?

 

M: It is the homing instinct, which makes the bird return to its nest

and the fish to the mountain stream where it was born. The seed

returns to the earth, when the fruit is ripe. Ripeness is all.

 

Q: And what will ripen me? Do I need experience?

 

M: You already have all the experience you need, otherwise you would

not have come here. You need not gather any more, rather you must go

beyond experience. Whatever effort you make, whatever method

(sadhana) you follow, will merely generate more experience, but will

not take you beyond. Nor will reading books help you. They will

enrich your mind, but the person you are will remain intact. If you

expect any benefits from your search, material, mental or spiritual,

you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives you no

higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and the

freedom from the false.

 

Q: Surely truth gives you the power to help others.

 

M: This is mere imagination, however noble! In truth you do not help

others, because there are no others. You divide people into noble and

ignoble and ask the noble to help the ignoble. You separate, you

evaluate, you judge and condemn -- in the name of truth you destroy

it. Your very desire to formulate truth denies it, because it cannot

be contained in words. Truth can be expressed only by the denial of

the false -- in action. For this you must see the false as false

(viveka) and reject it (vairagya). Renunciation of the false is

liberating and energizing. It lays open the road to perfection.

 

Nisargadatta, I am That