the sense of here and now - Nisargadatta

[Guest guest]

Between the remembered and the actual there is a basic difference which can be

observed from moment to moment. At no point of time is the actual the

remembered. Between the two there is a difference in kind, not merely in

intensity. The actual is unmistakably so. By no effort of will or imagination

can you interchange the two. Now, what is it that gives this unique quality to

the actual? A moment back, the remembered was actual, in a moment the actual

will be the remembered. What makes the actual unique?

Obviously, it is the sense of being present. In memory and anticipation, there

is a clear feeling that it is a mental state under observation, while in the

actual the feeling is primarily of being present and aware. Wherever you go, the

sense of here and now you carry with you all the time. It means that you are

independent of space and time, that space and time are in you, not you in them.

It is your self-identification with the body, which, of course, is limited in

space and time, that gives you the feeling of finiteness. In reality you are

infinite and eternal.

 

Look closely and you will see that the seer and the seen appear only when there

is seeing. They are attributes of seeing. When you say " I am seeing this " , " I

am " and " this " come with the seeing, nor before. You cannot have an unseen

" this " nor an unseeing " I am " . Knowing is a reflection of your true nature along

with being and loving. The knower and the known are added by the mind. It is in

the nature of the mind to create a subject-object duality, where there is none.

 

This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than mind and

matter, that compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This overwhelming

actuality makes the world dreamlike, misty, irrelevant.

 

My feeling is that all that happens in space and time happens to me, that every

experience is my experience, every form is my form. What I take myself to be

becomes my body, and all that happens to that body becomes my mind. But at the

root of the universe there is pure awareness, beyond space and time, here and

now. Know it to be your real being and act accordingly.

 

Nisargadatta