From Maharaj and I am that.

[Guest guest]

Q: Since you count your spiritual ancestry from Rishi Dattatreya,

are we right in believing that you and all your predecessors are

reincarnations of the Rishi?

 

M: You may believe in whatever you like and if you act on your

belief, you will get the fruits of it; but to me it has no

importance. I am what I am and this is enough for me. I have no

desire to identify myself with anybody, however illustrious. Nor do

I feel the need to take myths for reality. I am only interested in

ignorance and the freedom from ignorance. The proper role of the

Guru is to dispel ignorance in the hearts and minds of his

disciples. Once the disciple has understood, the confirming action

is up to him. Nobody can act for another. And if he does not act

rightly, it only means that he has not understood and that the

Guru's work is not over.

 

Q: There must be some hopeless cases too?

 

M: None is hopeless. Obstacles can be overcome.

What life cannot mend, death will end, but the Guru cannot fail.

 

Q: What gives you the assurance?

 

M: The Guru and the man's inner reality are really one and work

together towards the same goal - the redemption and salvation of the

mind. They cannot fail. Out of the very boulders that obstruct them

they build their bridges. Consciousness is not the whole of being -

there are other levels on which man is much more co-operative. The

Guru is at home on all levels and his energy and patience are

inexhaustable.

 

Q: You keep on telling me that I am dreaming and that it is high

time that I should wake up. How does it happen that the Maharaj, who

has come to me in my dreams, has not succeeded in waking me up? He

keeps on urging and reminding, but the dream continues.

 

M: It is because you have not really understood that you are

dreaming. This is the essence of bondage - the mixing of the real

with unreal. In your present state only the sense 'I am' refers to

reality; the 'what' and 'how I am' are illusions imposed by destiny,

or accident.

 

Q: When did the dream begin?

 

M: It appears to be beginningless, but in fact it is only now. From

moment to moment you are renewing it. Once you have seen that you

are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you

want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for

the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be

willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion, the loss of

interest in the dream itself.

 

Q: How helpless I am. As long as the dream of existence lasts, I

want it to continue.

As long as I want it to continue, it will last.

 

M: Wanting it to continue is not inevitable. See clearly your

condition,

your very clarity will release you.

 

Q: As long as I am with you, all you say seems pretty obvious; but

as soon as

I am away from you I run about restless and anxious.

 

M: You need not keep away from me, in your mind at least.

But your mind is after the world's welfare!

 

Q: The world is full of troubles, no wonder my mind too is full of

them.

 

M: Was there ever a world without troubles? Your being as a person

depends

on violence to others. Your very body is a battlefield, full of the

dead and dying.

Existence implies violence.

 

Q: As a body - yes. As a human being - definitely no. For humanity

nonviolence

is the law of life and violence of death.

 

M: There is little of nonviolence in nature.

 

Q: God and nature are not human and need not be humane. I am

concerned

with man alone. To be human I must be compassionate absolutely.

 

M: Do you realize that as long as you have a self to defend, you

must be violent?

 

Q: I do. To be truly human, I must be self-less. As long as I am

selfish,

I am sub-human, a humanoid only.

 

M: So, we are all sub-human and only a few are human. Few or many,

it is

again 'clarity and charity' that make us human. The sub-human -

the 'humanoids' -

are dominated by tamas and rajas and the humans by sattva. Clarity

and charity is

sattva as it affects mind and action. But the real is beyond sattva.

Since I have

known you, you seem to be always after helping the world.

How much did you help?

 

Q: Not a bit. Neither the world has changed, nor have I. But the

world suffers

and I suffer along with it. To struggle against suffering is a

natural reaction.

And what is civilization and culture, philosophy and religion, but a

revolt

against suffering. Evil and the ending of all evil - is it not your

main preoccupation?

You may call it ignorance - it comes to the same.

 

M: Well, words do not matter, nor does it matter in what shape you

are just now.

Names and shapes change incessantly. Know yourself to be the

changeless

witness of the changeful mind. That is enough.

 

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, " I Am That "