Niz. was just joking here?..Chpt.50 (in the dialogues)I am That

[Guest guest]

dear Roberibus,

I hope you aren`t typing all that.

What Niz is doing, is pulling us out of a bucket full

of nothing and hurling us into space.

Most of us hang on for <dear life>

Patricia

--- " Bob N. " <Roberibus111 a écrit :

 

 

 

50. Self-awareness is the Witness

Questioner: You told me that I can be considered under

three aspects:

the personal (vyakti), the super-personal (vyakta) and

the impersonal

(avyakta). The Avyakta is the universal and real pure

'I'; the Vyakta

is its reflection in consciousness as `I am'; the

Vyakti is the

totality of physical and vital processes. Within the

narrow confines

of the present moment, the super-personal is aware of

the person,

both in space and time; not only one person, but the

long series of

persons strung together on the thread of karma. It is

essentially the

witness as well as the residue of the accumulated

experiences, the

seat of memory, the connecting link (sutratma). It is

man's character

which life builds and shapes from birth to birth. The

universal is

beyond all name and shape, beyond consciousness and

character, pure

un­selfconscious being. Did I put down your views

rightly?

 

Maharaj: On the level of the mind -- yes. Beyond the

mental level not

a word applies.

 

Q: I can understand that the person is a mental

construct, a

collective noun for a set of memories and habits. But,

he to whom the

person happens, the witnessing centre, is it mental

too?

 

M: The personal needs a base, a body to identify

oneself with, just

as a colour needs a surface to appear on. The seeing

of the colour is

independent of the colour -- it is the same whatever

the colour. One

needs an eye to see a colour. The colours are many,

the eye is

single. The personal is like the light in the colour

and also in the

eye, yet simple, single, indivisible and

unperceivable, except in its

manifestations. Not unknowable, but unperceivable,

un-objectival,

inseparable. Neither material nor mental, neither

objective nor

subjective, it is the root of matter and the source of

consciousness.

Beyond mere living and dying, it is the all-inclusive,

all-exclusive

Life, in which birth is death and death is birth.

 

Q: The Absolute or Life you talk about, is it real,

or a mere

theory to cover up our ignorance?

 

M: Both. To the mind, a theory; in itself -- a

reality. It is

reality in its spontaneous and total rejection of the

false. Just as

light destroys darkness by its very presence, so does

the absolute

destroy imagination. To see that all knowledge is a

form of ignorance

is itself a movement of reality. The witness is not a

person. The

person comes into being when there is a basis for it,

an organism, a

body. In it the absolute is reflected as awareness.

Pure awareness

becomes self-awareness. When there is a self,

self-awareness is the

witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no

witnessing

either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of

the person that

complicates. See that there is no such thing as a

permanently

separate person and all becomes clear. Awareness --

mind -- matter --

they are one reality in its two aspects as immovable

and movable, and

the three attributes of inertia, energy and harmony.

 

Q: What comes first: consciousness or awareness?

 

M: Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an

object. The object

changes all the time. In consciousness there is

movement; awareness

by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now.

 

Q: There is suffering and bloodshed in East Pakistan

at the present

moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to

you, how do you

react to it?

 

M: In pure consciousness nothing ever happens.

 

Q: Please come down from these metaphysical heights!

Of what use is

it to a suffering man to be told that nobody is aware

of his

suffering but himself? To relegate everything to

illusion is insult

added to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a

fact and his

suffering is a fact. Please, do not analyse them out

of existence!

You are reading newspapers, you hear people talking

about it. You

cannot plead ignorance. Now, what is your attitude to

what is

happening?

 

M: No attitude. Nothing is happening.

 

Q: Any day there may be a riot right in front of

you, perhaps

people killing each other. Surely you cannot say:

nothing is

happening and remain aloof.

 

M: I never talked of remaining aloof. You could as

well see me

jumping into the fray to save somebody and getting

killed. Yet to me

nothing happened.

 

Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in

ruins, some are

intact. But can you speak of the space as ruined or

intact? It is

only the structure that suffered and the people who

happened to live

in it. Nothing happened to space itself. Similarly,

nothing happens

to life when forms break down and names are wiped out.

The goldsmith

melts down old ornaments to make new. Sometimes a good

piece goes

with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for he knows

that no gold is

lost.

 

Q: It is not death that I rebel against. It is the

manner of dying.

 

M: Death is natural, the manner of dying is man-made.

Separateness

causes fear and aggression, which again cause

violence. Do away with

man-made separations and all this horror of people

killing each other

will surely end. But in reality there is no killing

and no dying. The

real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your

mind right and

all will be right. When you know that the world is

one, that humanity

is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you

must attend to

the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is

order in yourself,

there can be no order in the world.

 

In reality nothing happens. Onto the screen of the

mind destiny

forever projects its pictures, memories of former

projections and

thus illusion constantly renews itself. The pictures

come and go --

light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and

disregard the

picture.

 

Q: What a callous way of looking at things! People

are killing and

getting killed and here you talk of pictures.

 

M: By all means go and get killed yourself -- if that

is what you

think you should do. Or even go and kill, if you take

it to be your

duty. But that is not the way to end the evil. Evil is

the stench of

a mind that is diseased. Heal your mind and it will

cease to project

distorted, ugly pictures.

 

Q: What you say I understand, but emotionally I

cannot accept it.

This merely idealistic view of life repels me deeply.

I just cannot

think myself to be permanently in a state of dream.

 

M: How can anybody be permanently in a state caused

by an

impermanent body? The misunderstanding is based on

your idea that you

are the body. Examine the idea, see its inherent

contradictions,

realise that your present existence is like a shower

of sparks, each

spark lasting a second and the shower itself -- a

minute or two.

Surely a thing of which the beginning is the end, can

have no middle.

Respect your terms. Reality cannot be momentary. It is

timeless, but

timelessness is not duration.

 

Q: I admit that the world in which I live is not the

real world.

But there is a real world, of which I see a distorted

picture. The

distortion may be due to some blemish in my body or

mind. But when

you say there is no real world, only a dream world in

my mind, I just

cannot take it. I wish I could believe that all

horrors of existence

are due to my having a body. Suicide would be the way

out.

 

M: As long as you pay attention to ideas, your own or

of others, you

will be in trouble. But if you disregard all

teachings, all books,

anything out into words and dive deeply within

yourself and find

yourself, this alone will solve all your problems and

leave you in

full mastery of every situation, because you will not

be dominated by

your ideas about the situation. Take an example. You

are in the

company of an attractive woman. You get ideas about

her and this

creates a sexual situation. A problem is created and

you start

looking for books on continence, or enjoyment. Were

you a baby, both

of you could be naked and together without any problem

arising. Just

stop thinking you are the bodies and the problems of

love and sex

will lose their meaning. With all sense of limitation

gone, fear,

pain and the search for pleasure -- all cease. Only

awareness remains.

 

 

Joking around? Was He?Nah!...(even A. Einstein agreed

with This)..bob

 

 

Translators Note

I met Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj some years back and was

impressed with

the spontaneous simplicity of his appearance and

behaviour and his

deep and genuine earnestness in expounding his

experience.

 

However humble and difficult to discover his little

tenement in the

back lanes of Bombay, many have found their way there.

Most of them

are Indians, conversing freely in their native

language, but there

were also many foreigners who needed a translator.

Whenever I was

present the task would fall to me. Many of the

questions put and

answers given were so interesting and significant that

a tape-

recorder was brought in. While most of the tapes were

of the regular

Marathi-English variety, some were polygot scrambles

of several

Indian and European languages. Later, each tape was

deciphered and

translated into English.

 

It was not easy to translate verbatim and at the same

time avoid

tedious repetitions and reiterations. It is hoped that

the present

translation of the tape-recordings will not reduce the

impact of this

clear-minded, generous and in many ways an unusual

human being.

 

A Marathi version of these talks, verified by Sri

Nisargadatta

Maharaj himself, has been separately published.

 

Maurice Frydman

Translator

Bombay

 

October 16, 1973

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**

 

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change your subscription, sign in with your ID

and go to Edit My Groups:

 

/mygroups?edit=1

 

Under the Message Delivery option, choose " No Email "

for the Nisargadatta group and click on Save Changes.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

50. Self-awareness is the Witness

Questioner: You told me that I can be considered under three aspects:

the personal (vyakti), the super-personal (vyakta) and the impersonal

(avyakta). The Avyakta is the universal and real pure 'I'; the Vyakta

is its reflection in consciousness as `I am'; the Vyakti is the

totality of physical and vital processes. Within the narrow confines

of the present moment, the super-personal is aware of the person,

both in space and time; not only one person, but the long series of

persons strung together on the thread of karma. It is essentially the

witness as well as the residue of the accumulated experiences, the

seat of memory, the connecting link (sutratma). It is man's character

which life builds and shapes from birth to birth. The universal is

beyond all name and shape, beyond consciousness and character, pure

un­selfconscious being. Did I put down your views rightly?

 

Maharaj: On the level of the mind -- yes. Beyond the mental level not

a word applies.

 

Q: I can understand that the person is a mental construct, a

collective noun for a set of memories and habits. But, he to whom the

person happens, the witnessing centre, is it mental too?

 

M: The personal needs a base, a body to identify oneself with, just

as a colour needs a surface to appear on. The seeing of the colour is

independent of the colour -- it is the same whatever the colour. One

needs an eye to see a colour. The colours are many, the eye is

single. The personal is like the light in the colour and also in the

eye, yet simple, single, indivisible and unperceivable, except in its

manifestations. Not unknowable, but unperceivable, un-objectival,

inseparable. Neither material nor mental, neither objective nor

subjective, it is the root of matter and the source of consciousness.

Beyond mere living and dying, it is the all-inclusive, all-exclusive

Life, in which birth is death and death is birth.

 

Q: The Absolute or Life you talk about, is it real, or a mere

theory to cover up our ignorance?

 

M: Both. To the mind, a theory; in itself -- a reality. It is

reality in its spontaneous and total rejection of the false. Just as

light destroys darkness by its very presence, so does the absolute

destroy imagination. To see that all knowledge is a form of ignorance

is itself a movement of reality. The witness is not a person. The

person comes into being when there is a basis for it, an organism, a

body. In it the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness

becomes self-awareness. When there is a self, self-awareness is the

witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no witnessing

either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of the person that

complicates. See that there is no such thing as a permanently

separate person and all becomes clear. Awareness -- mind -- matter --

they are one reality in its two aspects as immovable and movable, and

the three attributes of inertia, energy and harmony.

 

Q: What comes first: consciousness or awareness?

 

M: Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object

changes all the time. In consciousness there is movement; awareness

by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now.

 

Q: There is suffering and bloodshed in East Pakistan at the present

moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to you, how do you

react to it?

 

M: In pure consciousness nothing ever happens.

 

Q: Please come down from these metaphysical heights! Of what use is

it to a suffering man to be told that nobody is aware of his

suffering but himself? To relegate everything to illusion is insult

added to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a fact and his

suffering is a fact. Please, do not analyse them out of existence!

You are reading newspapers, you hear people talking about it. You

cannot plead ignorance. Now, what is your attitude to what is

happening?

 

M: No attitude. Nothing is happening.

 

Q: Any day there may be a riot right in front of you, perhaps

people killing each other. Surely you cannot say: nothing is

happening and remain aloof.

 

M: I never talked of remaining aloof. You could as well see me

jumping into the fray to save somebody and getting killed. Yet to me

nothing happened.

 

Imagine a big building collapsing. Some rooms are in ruins, some are

intact. But can you speak of the space as ruined or intact? It is

only the structure that suffered and the people who happened to live

in it. Nothing happened to space itself. Similarly, nothing happens

to life when forms break down and names are wiped out. The goldsmith

melts down old ornaments to make new. Sometimes a good piece goes

with the bad. He takes it in his stride, for he knows that no gold is

lost.

 

Q: It is not death that I rebel against. It is the manner of dying.

 

M: Death is natural, the manner of dying is man-made. Separateness

causes fear and aggression, which again cause violence. Do away with

man-made separations and all this horror of people killing each other

will surely end. But in reality there is no killing and no dying. The

real does not die, the unreal never lived. Set your mind right and

all will be right. When you know that the world is one, that humanity

is one, you will act accordingly. But first of all you must attend to

the way you feel, think and live. Unless there is order in yourself,

there can be no order in the world.

 

In reality nothing happens. Onto the screen of the mind destiny

forever projects its pictures, memories of former projections and

thus illusion constantly renews itself. The pictures come and go --

light intercepted by ignorance. See the light and disregard the

picture.

 

Q: What a callous way of looking at things! People are killing and

getting killed and here you talk of pictures.

 

M: By all means go and get killed yourself -- if that is what you

think you should do. Or even go and kill, if you take it to be your

duty. But that is not the way to end the evil. Evil is the stench of

a mind that is diseased. Heal your mind and it will cease to project

distorted, ugly pictures.

 

Q: What you say I understand, but emotionally I cannot accept it.

This merely idealistic view of life repels me deeply. I just cannot

think myself to be permanently in a state of dream.

 

M: How can anybody be permanently in a state caused by an

impermanent body? The misunderstanding is based on your idea that you

are the body. Examine the idea, see its inherent contradictions,

realise that your present existence is like a shower of sparks, each

spark lasting a second and the shower itself -- a minute or two.

Surely a thing of which the beginning is the end, can have no middle.

Respect your terms. Reality cannot be momentary. It is timeless, but

timelessness is not duration.

 

Q: I admit that the world in which I live is not the real world.

But there is a real world, of which I see a distorted picture. The

distortion may be due to some blemish in my body or mind. But when

you say there is no real world, only a dream world in my mind, I just

cannot take it. I wish I could believe that all horrors of existence

are due to my having a body. Suicide would be the way out.

 

M: As long as you pay attention to ideas, your own or of others, you

will be in trouble. But if you disregard all teachings, all books,

anything out into words and dive deeply within yourself and find

yourself, this alone will solve all your problems and leave you in

full mastery of every situation, because you will not be dominated by

your ideas about the situation. Take an example. You are in the

company of an attractive woman. You get ideas about her and this

creates a sexual situation. A problem is created and you start

looking for books on continence, or enjoyment. Were you a baby, both

of you could be naked and together without any problem arising. Just

stop thinking you are the bodies and the problems of love and sex

will lose their meaning. With all sense of limitation gone, fear,

pain and the search for pleasure -- all cease. Only awareness remains.

 

 

Joking around? Was He?Nah!...(even A. Einstein agreed with This)..bob

 

 

Translators Note

I met Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj some years back and was impressed with

the spontaneous simplicity of his appearance and behaviour and his

deep and genuine earnestness in expounding his experience.

 

However humble and difficult to discover his little tenement in the

back lanes of Bombay, many have found their way there. Most of them

are Indians, conversing freely in their native language, but there

were also many foreigners who needed a translator. Whenever I was

present the task would fall to me. Many of the questions put and

answers given were so interesting and significant that a tape-

recorder was brought in. While most of the tapes were of the regular

Marathi-English variety, some were polygot scrambles of several

Indian and European languages. Later, each tape was deciphered and

translated into English.

 

It was not easy to translate verbatim and at the same time avoid

tedious repetitions and reiterations. It is hoped that the present

translation of the tape-recordings will not reduce the impact of this

clear-minded, generous and in many ways an unusual human being.

 

A Marathi version of these talks, verified by Sri Nisargadatta

Maharaj himself, has been separately published.

 

Maurice Frydman

Translator

Bombay

 

October 16, 1973