I am that

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends

 

Here is a conversation from a book called " I am That " which is a collection

of conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. These have been translated

from Marathi by Maurice Frydman, a Polish devotee who learnt Marathi for

this express purpose. Frydman was also fortunate to sit at the feet of Sri

Ramana Maharshi.

 

It is said, that after Frydman passed away, Sri Nisargadatta asked for a

photo of his and hung it along with those of Hindu gods which used to adorn

the room where he sat in the city of Mumbai (Bombay).

 

I find these conversations very inspiring. I regret that although these are

quite long, they have to be read at one go. I am sorry if I am

inconveniencing some members.

 

Swami

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Truth is here and now

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Questioner: My question is : What is the proof of truth? Followers of every

religion, metaphysical or political, philosophical or ethical are convinced

that their’s is the only truth, that all else is false and they take their

own unshakeable conviction as proof of truth. ‘I am convinced, so it must be

true’, they say. It seems to me, that no philosophy or religion, no doctrine

or ideology, however complete, free from inner contradictions and

emotionally appealing, can be proof of its own truth. They are like clothes

men put on, which vary with times and circumstances and which follow the

fashion trends.

 

Now, can there be a religion and philosophy which is true and which does not

depend on someone’s conviction? Nor on scriptures, because they again depend

on somebody’s faith in them? Is there a truth which does not depend on

trusting, which is not subjective?

 

Maharaj: What about science?

 

Q: Science is circular, it ends where it starts, with the senses. It deals

with experience and experience is subjective. No two persons can have the

same experience, though they may express it in the same words.

 

M: You must look for truth beyond the mind.

 

Q: Sir, I have had enough of trances. Any drug can induce them cheaply and

quickly. Even the classical samadhis, caused by breathing or mental

exercises, are not much different. There are oxygen samadhis and carbon

dioxide samadhis and self induced samadhis, caused by repetition of a

formula or a chain of thoughts. Monotony is soporific. I cannot accept

samadhi, however glorious, as proof of truth.

 

M: Samadhi is beyond experience. It is a qualityless state.

 

Q: The absence of experience is due to inattention. It reappears with

attention. Closing one’s eyes does not disprove light. Attributing reality

to negative states will not take us far. The very negation contains an

affirmation.

 

M: In a way you are right. But don’t you see, you are asking for the proof

of truth without explaining what is the truth you have in mind and what

proof will satisfy you? You can prove anything, provided you trust your

proof. But what will prove that your proof is true? I can easily drive you

into an admission that you know only that you exist – that you are the only

proof you can have of anything. But I do not identify mere existence with

reality. Existence is momentary, always in time and space, while reality is

timeless and all-pervading.

 

Q: Sir, I do not know what is truth and what can prove it. Do not throw me

on my own resources. I have none. Here you are the truth knower, not me.

 

M: You refuse testimony as the proof of truth. The experience of others is

of no use to you, you reject all inference from the concurring statements of

a cast number of independent witnesses; so it is for you to tell me what is

the proof that will satisfy you, what is your test of a valid proof?

 

Q: Honestly, I do not know what makes a proof.

 

M: Not even your own experience?

 

Q: Neither my experience, nor even existence. They depend on my being

conscious.

 

M: And your being conscious depends on what?

 

Q: I do not know. Formerly, I would have said: On my body. Now I can see

that the body is secondary, not primary, and cannot be considered as an

evidence of existence.

 

M: I am glad you have abandoned the I-am-the-body idea, the main source of

error and suffering.

 

Q: I have abandoned it intellectually, but the sense of being the

particular, a person, is still with me. I can say: ‘I am’, but what I am I

cannot say. I know I exist but I do not know what exists. Whichever way I

put it, I face the unknown.

 

M: Your very being is the real.

 

Q: Surely, we are not talking of the same thing. I am not some abstract

being. I am a person, limited and aware of its limitations. I am a fact, but

a most unsubstantial fact I am. There is nothing I can build upon my

momentary existence as a person.

 

M: Your words are wiser than you are! As a person your existence is

momentary. But are you a person only? Are you a person at all?

 

Q: How am I to answer? My sense of being only proves that I am; it does not

prove anything that is independent of me. I am relative, both creator and

creature of the relative. The absolute proof of the absolute truth – what is

it, where is it? Can the mere feeling ‘I am’ be the proof of reality?

 

M: Of course not. ‘I am’ and ‘the world’ are related and conditional. They

are due to the tendency of the mind to project names and shapes.

 

Q: Names and shapes and ideas and convictions, but not truth. But for you, I

would have accepted the relativity of everything, including truth, and

learnt to live by assumptions. But then I meet you and hear you taking of

the absolute as within my reach and also as supremely desirable. Words like

peace, bliss, eternity, immortality, catch my attention, as offering freedom

from pain and fear. My inborn instincts: pleasure seeking and curiosity are

roused and I begin to explore the realm you have opened. All seems most

attractive and naturally I ask: Is it attainable? Is it real?

 

M: You are like a child that says: ‘Prove that the sugar is sweet then only

I shall have it’. The proof of the sweetness is in the mouth not in the

sugar. To know it is sweet, you must taste it, there is no other way. Of

course, you begin by asking: Is it Sugar? Is it sweet? And you accept my

assurance until you taste it. Then only all doubts dissolve and your

knowledge becomes first hand and unshakeable. I do not ask you to believe

me. Just trust me enough to begin with. Every step proves or disproves

itself. You seem to want the proof of truth to precede the truth. And what

will be the proof of the proof? You see, you are falling into a regress. To

cut it, you must put a stop to asking for proofs and accept, for a moment

only, something as true. It does not really matter what it is. It maybe god,

or me, or your own self. In each case you accept something or somebody

unknown as true. Now if you act on the truth you have accepted, even for a

moment, very soon you will be brought to the next step. It is like climbing

a tree in the dark – you can get hold of the next branch only if you are

perched on the previous one. In science it is called the experimental

approach. To prove a theory, you carry out the experiment according to the

operational instructions left behind by those who have performed the

experiment before you. In spiritual search, the chain of experiments one has

to perform is called yoga.

 

Q: There are so many yogas. Which one to choose?

 

M: Of course, every gnani will suggest the path of his own attainment as the

one he knows most intimately. But most of them are very liberal and adapt

their advice to the needs of the enquirer. All paths take you to the

purification of the mind. The impure mind is opaque to the truth; the pure

mind is transparent. Truth can be seen through it easily and clearly.

 

Q: I am sorry, but I seem unable to convey my difficulty. I am asking about

the proof of truth and am being given the methods of attaining it. Assuming

I follow the methods and attain some most wonderful and desirable state, how

do I come to know that my state is true? Every religion begins with faith

and promises some ecstasy. Is the ecstasy of the real, or a product of

faith? For, if it is an induced state, I shall have nothing to do with it.

Take Christianity that says: Jesus is your saviour. Believe, and be saved

from sin. When I ask a sinning christian how he has not been saved from sin

despite his faith in Christ, he answers: My faith is not perfect. Again we

are in a vicious circle – without perfect faith – no salvation – no perfect

faith, hence no salvation. Conditions are imposed which are unfulfillable

and then we are blamed for not fulfilling them.

 

M: You do not realise that your present waking state is one of ignorance.

Your question about the proof of truth is born out of ignorance of reality.

You are contacting your sensory and mental states in consciousness, at the

point of ‘I AM’, while reality is not mediated, not contacted, not

experienced. You are taking duality so much for granted, that you do not

even notice it, while to me variety and diversity do not create separation.

You imagine reality to stand apart from names and forms, while to me names

and forms are the ever changing expressions of reality and not apart from

it. You ask for the proof of truth while to me all existence is the proof.

You separate existence from being and being from reality, while to me all is

one. However much you are convinced of the truth of your waking state you do

not claim it to be permanent and changeless, as I do when I talk of mine.

Yet I see no difference between us, except that you are imagining things

while I am not.

 

Q: First you disqualify me from asking about truth, then you accuse me of

imagination! What is imagination to you is reality to me.

 

M: Until you investigate. I am not accusing you of anything. I am only

asking you to question wisely. Instead of searching for the proof of truth,

which you do not know, go through the proofs you have of what you believe to

know. You will find you know nothing for sure – you trust on hearsay. To

know the truth, you must pass through your own experience.

 

Q: I am mortally afraid of samadhis and other trances, whatever their cause.

A drink, a smoke, a fever, a drug, breathing, singing, shaking, dancing,

whirling, praying, sex or fasting, mantras or some vertiginous abstraction

can dislodge me from my waking state and give me some experience,

extraordinary because unfamiliar. But when the cause ceases, the effect

dissolves and only a memory remains, haunting but fading.

 

Let us give up all means and their results, for the results are bound by the

means; let us put the question anew; can truth be found?

 

M: Where is the dwelling place of truth where you can go in search of it?

And how will you know that you have found it? What touchstone do you bring

with you to test it? You are back at the initial question: What is the proof

of truth? There must be something wrong with the question itself for you

tend to repeat it again and again. Why do you ask what are the proofs of

truth? Is it not because you do not know the truth firsthand and are afraid

that you maybe deceived? You imagine that truth is a thing that carries the

name ‘truth’ and that it is advantageous to have it, provided it is genuine.

Hence your fear of being cheated. You are shopping for truth, but you do not

trust the merchants. You are afraid of forgeries and imitations.

 

Q: I am not afraid of being cheated. I am afraid of cheating myself.

 

M: But you are cheating yourself in your ignorance of your true motives. You

are asking for truth, but in fact you merely seek comfort, which you want to

last forever. Now, nothing, no state of mind can last forever. In time and

space everything has a limit, for time and space are themselves limited. And

in the timeless, the words ‘for ever’ have no meaning. The same with the

‘proof of truth’. In the realm of non-duality everything is complete, its

own proof, meaning and purpose. Where all is one, no supports are needed.

You imagine that permanence is the proof of truth that which lasts longer is

somehow more true. Time becomes the measure of truth. And since time is in

the mind, the mind becomes the arbiter and searches within itself the proof

of truth – a task altogether impossible and hopeless.

 

Q: Sir, were you to say: Nothing is true, all is relative, I would agree

with you. But you maintain there is truth, reality, perfect knowledge, there

fore I ask: What is it and how do you know? And what will make me sat : Yes,

Maharaj was right?

 

M: You are holding on to the need for a proof, a testimony, an authority.

You still imagine that truth needs pointing at and telling you: ‘Look, here

is truth’. It is not so. Truth is not the result of an effort, the end of a

road. It is here and now, in the very longing and the search for it. It is

nearer than the mind and the body, nearer than the sense ‘I am’. You do not

see it because you look too far away from yourself, outside your innermost

being. You have objectified truth and insist on your standard proofs and

tests, which apply only to things and thoughts.

 

Q: All I can make out from what you say is that truth is beyond me and that

I am not qualified to talk about it.

 

M: You are not only qualified, you are truth itself. Only you mistake the

false for the true.

 

Q: You seem to say: Don’t ask for proofs of truth. Concern yourself with

untruth only.

 

M: The discovery of truth is in the discernment of the false. You can know

what is not. What is – you can only be. Knowledge is relative to the known.

In a way, it is the counterpart of ignorance. Where ignorance is not, where

is the need of knowledge? By themselves, neither ignorance nor knowledge

have being. They are only states of mind, which again is but an appearance

of movement in consciousness which is in its essence immutable.

 

Q: Is truth within the realm of the mind or beyond?

 

M: It is neither, it is both. It cannot be put into words.

 

Q: This is what I hear all the time – inexpressible (anirvachaniya). It does

not make me wiser.

 

M: It is true that it often covers sheer ignorance. The mind can operate

with terms of its own making, it just cannot go beyond itself. That which is

neither sensory nor mental; and yet without which neither the sensory nor

mental can exist, cannot be contained in them. Do understand that the mind

has its limits. To go beyond, you must consent to silence.

 

Q: Can we say that action is the proof of truth? It may not be verbalised,

but it maybe demonstrated.

 

M: Neither action nor inaction. It is beyond both.

 

Q: Can a man ever say: ‘Yes, this is true’? Or is he limited to the denial

of the false? In other words, is truth pure negation? Or, does a moment come

when it becomes assertion?

 

M: Truth cannot be described, but it can be experienced.

 

Q: Experience is subjective. It cannot be shared. Your experience leaves me

where I am.

 

M: Truth can be experienced, but it is not mere experience. I know it and

can convey it, but only if you are open to it. To be open means to want

nothing else.

 

Q: I am full of desires and fears. Does it means I am not eligible for

truth?

 

M: Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some

tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the

ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need

not merit truth. It is your own. Just stop running away by running after.

Stand still, be quiet.

 

Q: Sir, if you the body to be still, the mind – quiet, tell me how it is

done. In self-awareness I see the body and the mind moved by causes beyond

my control. Heredity and environment dominate me absolutely. The mighty ‘I

am’, the creator of the universe, can be wiped out by a drug – temporarily,

or a drop of poison – permanently.

 

M: Again you take yourself to be the body.

 

Q: Even if I dismiss this body of bones, flesh and blood as not-me, still I

remain with the subtle body made up of thoughts and feelings, memories and

imaginations. If I dismiss these also as not-me, I still remain with

consciousness, which is also a kind of body.

 

M: You are quite right. But you need not stop there. Go beyond. Neither

consciousness, nor the ‘I am’ at the center of it, are you. Your true being

is entirely unself-conscious, completely free from all self identification

with whatever it maybe, gross subtle or transcendental.

 

Q: I can imagine myself to be beyond. But what proof have I? To be, I must

be somebody.

 

M: It is the other way round. To be, you must be nobody. To think yourself

to be something, or somebody, is death and hell.

 

Q: I have read that in ancient Egypt people were admitted into some

mysteries where, under the influence of drugs or incantations, they would

be expelled from their bodies and could actually experience standing outside

and looking at their own prostate forms. This was intended to convince them

of the reality of the after-death experience and create in them a deep

concern with their ultimate destiny, so profitable to the state and temple.

The self-identification of the person owning the body remained.

 

M: The body is made of food, as the mind is made of thoughts. See them as

they are. Non-identification, when natural and spontaneous, is liberation.

You need not know what you are. Enough to know what you are not. What you

are you will never know, for every discovery reveals new dimensions to

conquer. The unknown has no limits.

 

Q: Does this imply ignorance for ever?

 

M: It means that ignorance never was. Truth is in the discovery, not in the

discovered. And to discovery, there is no beginning and no end. Question the

limits, go beyond, set yourself tasks apparently impossible – this is the

way.

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