Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Guest guest]

The Mind

 

Q: There are very interesting books written by apparently very

competent people, in which the illusoriness of the world is denied

(thought not its transitoriness). According to them, there exists a

hierarchy of beings, from the lowest to the highest; on each level the

complexity of the organism enables and reflect the depth, breadth and

intensity of consciousness, without any visible or knowable

culmination. One law supreme rules throughout: evolution of forms for

the growth and enrichment of consciousness and manifestation of its

infinite potentialities.

 

Nisargadatta Maharaj:

This may or may not be so. Even it if is, it is only so from the

mind's point of view, but in fact the entire universe (mahadakash)

exists only in consciousness (chidakash), while I have my stand in the

Absolute (paramakash). In pure being consciousness arises; in

consciousness the world appears and disappears All these is is me, all

there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all ending - I am. All

has it being in me, in the 'I am', that shines in every living being.

Even not-being is unthinkable without me. Whatever happens, I must be

there to witness it.

 

Q: Why do you deny being to the world?

 

M: I do not negate the world. I see it as appearing in consciousness,

which is the totality of the known in the immensity of the unknown.

What begins and ends in mere appearance. The world can be said to

appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some scale

of time, and be very short on another, but ultimately it comes to the

same. Whatever is time-bound is momentary and has no reality.

 

Q: Surely, you see the actual world as it surrounds you. You seem

to behave quite normally!

 

M: That is how it appears to you. What in your case occupies the

entire field of consciousness, is a mere speck in mine. The world

lasts, but for a moment. It is your memory that makes you think that

the world continues. Myself, I don't live by memory. I see the world

as it is, a momentary appearance in consciousness.

 

Q: In your consciousness?

 

M: All idea of 'me' and 'mine' even of 'I am' is in consciousness.

 

Q: It then your 'absolute being' (paramakash) unconsciousness?

 

M: The idea of unconsciousness exists in consciousness only.

 

Q: Then, how do you know you are in the supreme state?

 

M: Because I am in it. It is the only natural state.

 

Q: Can you describe it?

 

M: Only by negation, as uncaused, independent, independent, unrelated,

undivided, uncomposed, unshakeable, unquestionable, unreachable by

effort. Every positive definition is from memory and, therefore,

inapplicable. And yet my state is supremely actual and, therefore,

possible, realizable, attainable.

 

Q: Are you not immersed timelessly in an abstraction?

 

M: Abstraction is mental and verbal and disappears in sleep, or

swoon; it reappears in time; I am in my own state (swarupa)

timelessly in the now. Past and future are in the mind only - I am

now.

 

Q: The world too is now.

 

M: Which world?

 

Q: The world around us.

 

M: It is your world you have in mind, not mine. What do you know of

me, when even my talk with you in in your world only? You have no

reason to believe that my world is identical with yours. My world is

real, true, as it is perceived, while yours appears and disappears,

according to the state of your mind. Your world is something alien,

and you are afraid of it. My world is myself. I am at home.

 

Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it? Is not the

subject of consciousness different from its object?

 

M: Consciousness and the world appear and disappear together, hence

they are two aspects of the same state.

 

Q: In sleep I am not, and the world continues.

 

M: How do you know?

 

Q: On waking up I come to know. My memory tells me.

 

M: Memory is in the mind. The mind continues in sleep.

 

Q: It is partly in abeyance.

 

M: But its world picture is not affected. As long as the mind is

there, your body and your world are there. Your world is mind-made,

Subjective, enclosed within the mind, fragmentary, temporary,

personal, hanging on the thread of memory.

 

Q: So is yours?

 

M: Oh, no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of

imaginings. Your world is personal, private, unsharable, intimately

your own. Nobody can enter it, see are you see, hear as you hear, feel

your emotions and think your thoughts. In your world you are truly

alone, enclosed is your ever-changing dream, which you take for life.

My world is an open world, common to all, accessible to all. In my

world there is community, insight, love, real quality; the individual

is the total, the totality - in the individual. All are one and the

One is all.

 

Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine?

 

M: Yes, I appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it just

happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind

machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do not

need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and

actions. They just happen and leave me un-concerned, for in my world

nothing every goes wrong.