Guest guest Posted July 28, 2003 Report Share Posted July 28, 2003 Some of my favorite Nisargadatta quotes: ---------- The sweetness is the nature of sugar; but that sweetness is there only so long as the sugar is present. Once the sugar has been consumed or thrown away, there is no more sweetness. So this knowledge " I am, " this consciousness, this feeling or sense of Being, is the quintessence of the body. And if that body essence is gone, this feeling, the sense of Being, will also have gone. This sense of Being cannot remeain without the body, just as sweetness cannot remain without the material, which is sugar. Visitor: What remains then? Maharaj: What remains is the Original, which is unconditioned, without attributes, and without identity: that on which this temporary state of the consciousness and the three states and the three gunas have come and gone. It is called Parabrahman, the Absolute. This is my basic teaching. " The Ultimate Medicine, " p. 35 ---------- Because of your existence, because you know that you are, you know also that the world is. So this consciousness, because of which you experience the world, is not unimportant; in fact, it is very important. So why not stabilize there? Meditate on that consciousness itself, and find out how this " I-am-ness " has appeared. What was its cause? And from what did this consciousness develop? Try to find out, go right to the source! ----- There are many persons who have a great attachment to their own individuality. They want first and foremost to remain as an individual and then search, for they are not prepared to lose that individuality. While retaining their identity, they want to find out what is the truth. But in this process, you must get rid of the identity itself. If you really find out what your are, you will see that you are not an individual, you are not a person, you are not a body. And people who cling to their body identity are not fit for this knowledge. ----- Some quotes from Consciousness and the Absolute: Maharaj: Doctors have diagnosed that this body has cancer. Would anyone else be as joyful as I am, with such a serious diagnosis? The world is your direct experience, your own observation. All that is happening is happening at this level, but I am not at this level. I have dissociated myself from Sattva Guna, being ness. The Ultimate state in spirituality is that state where no needs are felt at any time, where nothing is useful for anything. That state is called Nirvana, Nirguna, that which is the Eternal and Ultimate Truth. The essence and sum total of this whole talk is called Sat-guru Parabrahman, that state in which there are no requirements. After the dissolution of the universe, when no further vestige of creation was apparent, what remained is my perfect state. All through the creation and dissolution of the universe, I remain ever untouched. I have not expounded this part: my state never felt the creation and dissolution of the universe. I am the principle which survives all the creations, all the dissolutions. This is my state, and yours, too, but you don't realize it because you are embracing your beingness. Realizing it is only possible when one get support from invincible faith, from that eternal Sat-guru Parabrahman. This state, this Parabrahman principle, is eternal and is also the Sat-guru. It is the eternal property of any devotee of a Guru. -- July 29, 1980 Questioner: Why did this consciousness arise? Maharaj: You are both the question and the answer. All your questions come from your identification with the body. How can any questions relating to that which was prior to the body and consciousness be answered? There are yogis who have sat in meditation for many, many years seeking answers to this question, but even they haven't understood it. And yet you are complaining. Q: It is a great mystery. M: It's a mystery only to the ignorant. To the one not identified with the body, it is no longer a mystery. Q: Maharaj cannot convey it to us? M: I keep telling you but you don't listen. Q: Does Maharaj see us as individuals? M: There are no individuals; there are only food bodies with the knowledge " I Am " . There is no difference between an ant, a human being, and Isvara; they are of the same quality. The body of an ant is small, an elephant's is large. The strength is different, because of size, but the life-force is the same. For knowledge the body is necessary. Q: How did Maharaj get the name Nisargadatta? M: At one time I was composing poems. Poems used to flow out of me and, in this flow, I just added Nisargadatta. I was reveling in composing poems until my Guru cautioned me, " You are enjoying composing these poems too much; give them up! " What was he driving at? His objective was for my to merge in the Absolute state instead of reveling in my beingness. This was the way I realized knowledge, not through mental manipulation. My Guru said, " This is so, " and for me, it was finished! If you continue in the realm of intellect you will become entangled and lost in more and more concepts. Consciousness is time flowing continuously. But I, the Absolute, will not have its company eternally because consciousness is time bound. When this beingness goes, the Absolute will not know " I Am " . Appearance and disappearance, birth and death, these are the qualities of beingness; they are not you qualities. You have urinated and odor is coming from that -- are you that odor? Q: No, I am not. M: You require no more sadhana.. For you, the words of the Guru are final. -- October 5, 1980 Maharaj: I have no individuality. I have assumed no pose as a person. Whatever happens in the manifest consciousness happens. People identify me with their concepts and they do what their concepts tell them. It is consciousness which is manifest, nothing else. Who is talking, who is walking, who is sitting? These are the expressions of that chemical " I Am " . Are you that chemical? You talk about heaven and hell, this Mahatma or that one, but how about you? Who are you? In meditation, one sees a lot of visions. They are in the chemical, the realm of your consciousness, are they not? All these things are connected only to that birth-chemical. You are not this chemical " I Am " ! Spiritual knowledge should not be studied; it is knowledge derived from listening. When the listener hears it, and accepts it, something clicks in him. This " I Amness " is otherness; it is an expression of duality. -- November 8, 1980 Questioner: Why is it that we naturally seem to think of ourselves as separate individuals? Maharaj: Your thoughts about individuality are really not you own thoughts; they are all collective thoughts; they are all collective thoughts. You think that you are the one who has the thoughts; in fact thoughts arise in consciousness. As our spiritual knowledge grows, our identification with an individual body-mind diminishes, and our consciousness expands into universal consciousness. The life force continues to act, but its thought and actions are no longer limited to an individual. They become the total manifestation. It is like the action of the wind -- the wind doesn't blow for any particular individual, but for the total manifestation. Q: As an individual can we go back to the source? M: Not as an individual; the knowledge " I Am " must go back to its own source. Now, consciousness has identified with a form. Later, it understands that it is not that form and goes further. In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it stops. In a very few cases, it reaches its real source, beyond all conditioning. It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self. I am not talking to an individual, I am talking to the consciousness. It is consciousness which must seek its source. Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of " I Am " and then suddenly the space is there. In the space, movement starts with the air, the fire, the water, and the earth. All these five elements are you only. Out of your consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only you, the total functioning is you, the consciousness is you. You are the consciousness, all the titles of the Gods are you names, but by clinging to the body you hand yourself over to time and death -- you are imposing it on yourself. I am the total universe. When I am the total universe I am in need of nothing because I am everything. But I cramped myself into a small thing, a body; I made myself a fragment and became needful. I need so many things as a body. In the absence of a body, do you, and did you, exist? Are you, and were you, there or not? Attain that state which is and was prior to the body. Your true nature is open and free, but you cover it up, you give it various designs. -- November 9, 1980 Questioner: Should the type of dispassion which Maharaj is teaching us be taught to children? Maharaj: No. It that's done, they'll have no ambition to grow further; they must have certain ambitions, certain desires, for their proper growth. The one who has fully investigated himself, the one who has come to understand, will never try to interfere in the play of consciousness. There is no creator with a vast intellect as such; all this play is going on spontaneously. There's no intellect behind it, so don't try to impose yours to bring about any change; leave it alone. Your intellect is a subsequent product of this process, so how can your intellect take charge of or even evaluate, the whole creation? Investigate your self; this is the purpose of your being. Spirituality is nothing more that understanding this play of consciousness -- try to find out what this fraud is by seeking its source. -- November 12, 1980 Maharaj: The " I Amness " , the manifest Brahman, and the Isvara are all only one; ponder over this and realize it. This is a rare opportunity, one where all has been explained in great detail, so take full advantage of it. You are the manifest Brahman. I have told you many times what your true state is, but, through force of habit, you again descend into body identification. A stage has now arrived at which you must give up this bodily identification. The bodily activities will continue until the body drops off, but you should not identify with them. Questioner: How are we to do this? Maharaj: You can watch the body, so you are not the body. You can watch the breath, so you are not the vital breath. In the same way, you are not the consciousness; but you have to become one with the consciousness. As you stabilize in the consciousness, dispassion for the body and for the expressions through the body occurs spontaneously. It is a natural renunciation, not a deliberate one. It does not mean that you should neglect your worldly duties; carry these out with full zest. Q: Shouldn't we rediscover the freedom of the little baby from the body? M: Understand the source of the child. The child is a product of the sperm of the father and the ovum of the mother. Consciousness is there in the child as it is in the parents; it is always the same consciousness whether in the child or the adult. There is only one consciousness. You must become one with and stabilize in that consciousness, then you transcend it. That consciousness is you only capital. Understand it. To what extent do you know yourself? Q: I have held the feet of Sat-guru, beyond that I don't know anything. M: You must do that, but you should understand the meaning of " feet of Sat-guru. " Understand that, as movement begins with the feet, so movement begins from no-knowingness to knowingness. When the knowingness occurs, that is Sat-guru movement. Go to the source for the movement where the " I Amness " begins. The effort of the one who has arrested that movement will not go to waste. Holding the fee of the Sat-guru is the borderline between knowingness and no-knowingness. -- November 17, 1980 Questioner: Don't we have to discard all knowledge? Maharaj: You must have a thorough knowledge of this consciousness, and having known everything about the consciousness you come to the conclusion that it is all unreal, and then it should drop off. Having listened to these talks, sit and meditate, " That which I have heard, is it true or not? " Then you will understand that this is also to be discarded. The principle which can pass judgment on whether the world is or is not, that principle antedates the world. That by which everything is known, whether it is or not -- who knows this? When I say Parabrahman, then you say that you understand. Names are merely an instrument for communicating. Do you understand what I am driving at? Q: The jnani knows that this is all an illusion, that there is no path; but if, from within the illusion, one is convinced that there is a path, and there's somewhere to go, does it make sense to use techniques to get to that further illusion? M: Illusion - is it a word or not? Q: It's a word that relates to a concept. M: That is also a name only, is it not? Q: Yes. M: So what illusory word do you want that will satisfy you? -- November 18, 1980 Maharaj: My present outlook is without limitation, total freedom. Ultimately one must go beyond knowledge, but the knowledge must come, and knowledge can come by constant meditation. By meditating, the knowledge " I Am " gradually settles down and merges with universal knowledge, and thereby becomes totally free, like the sky, or space. Those who come here with the idea of getting knowledge, even spiritual knowledge, come here as individuals aspiring to get something: that is the real difficulty. The seeker must disappear. When you know your real nature the knowledge " I Am " remains, but that knowledge is unlimited. It is not possible for you to acquire knowledge, you are knowledge. You are what you are seeking. Your true being exists prior to the arising of any concept. Can you, as an object, understand something that existed prior to the arising of a concept? In the absence of consciousness is there any proof of the existence of the existence of anything? Consciousness itself is mind, is thought, is all phenomena, all manifestation. Apprehending this is being dead to " A am the body " while alive. This kind of knowledge comes only in a rare case, and is a very elusive kind of knowledge where no effort is necessary; in fact, effort itself is a hindrance. It is intuitive understanding. Questioner: Then should all spiritual disciplines be dropped? M: At the highest level this is so; at the earlier levels you have to do your homework. Those who are able intuitively to grasp this lose their interest in worldly affairs. Having lost it, what will they get? Whatever they have lost, they will have lost as an ordinary person, but what they get in return will be fit for a King. hose who have comprehended and who have reached a certain stage will not ask for anything, but everything will come to them spontaneously. There will be no wish for it; nevertheless, it will be there. This does not happen for an individual -- it happens for the universal manifestation, of for the one who has become one with his true nature. For the jñani, only witnessing is taking place. -- November 20, 1980 Maharaj: The principle which can know itself is in the organism. In a worm crawling, it is there, because the worm knows itself instinctively. By listening to my talks you will be transformed back to your original state, prior to you birth. Right now, in spite of you present life, it will happen. My present talk is quite different now, at a higher level; therefore I do not invite anybody to listen to my present talks. I recommend that nobody should come and listen because they will develop a dispassion for their family or daily life. Language energy and vital breath energy should merge and stabilize. Otherwise, if you allow them to go outward, they will be dissipated. If you want peace, stabilize at that point where you started to be, stay put there. Om is the unstruck sound, the unpronounced word. You don't respond to my talks, you have not been able to perceive the nature of you consciousness. Consciousness is something like the drama of a play, play-acting. You are unsupported, you have no support at all. The birth, the parents, all this is illusion. Taking the body as oneself is the accident. If you don't cling to the body as your identity, everything will be all right. When beingness forgets itself, that state is Parabrahman. This knowingness is not your true state, it is the outcome of the food essence body, and you, the Absolute, are not that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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