Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Guest guest]

The Self Stands Beyond Mind

 

Questioner: As a child, fairly often I experienced states of complete

happiness, verging on ecstasy. Later, they ceased.

But since I came to India they reappeared, particularly after I met

you. Yet, these states, however wonderful, are not lasting.

they come and go and there is no knowing when they will come back.

 

Maharaj Nisargadatta: How can an unsteady mind make itself steady?

Of course it cannot.

It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do

is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

 

Q: How is it don't?

 

M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'.

The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and

perseverance

it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quite, things will begin

to happen spontaneously and quite naturally, without an

interference on your part.

 

Q: Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

 

M: Yes, you can. Just live your life as it comes, but alertly,

Watchfully, allowing everything to happen as it happens, doing

the natural things the natural way, suffering, rejoicing - as life

brings.

This also is a way.

 

Q: Well, then I can as well marry, have children, run a business...

be happy.

 

M: Sure. You may or may not be happy, take it in your stride.

 

Q: Yet I want happiness.

 

M: True happiness cannot be found in things that change and

pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably.

Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only.

Find your real self (swarupa) and all else will come with it.

 

Q: If my real self is peace and love, why is it so restless?

 

M: It is not your real being that is restless, but its reflection in

the mind

appears restless because the mind is restless. It is just like the

reflection

of the moon in the water stirred by the wind. The wind

of desire stirs the mind and the 'me' which is but a reflection

of the Self in the mind, appears changeful. But these ideas of

movement, of restlessness, of pleasure and pain are all in the

mind. The Self stands beyond the mind, aware, but unconcerned.

 

Q: How to reach it?

 

M: You are the Self, here and now. Leave the mind alone, stand

aware and unconcerned and you will realize that to stand alert

but detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your

real nature.

 

Q: What are the other aspects?

 

M: The aspects are infinite in number. Realize one, and you will

realize all.

 

Q: Tell me something that would help me.

 

M: You know best what you need!

 

Q: I am restless. How can I gain peace?

 

M: For what do you need peace?

 

Q: To be happy.

 

M: Are you not happy now?

 

Q: No, I am not.

 

M: What makes you unhappy?

 

Q: I have what I don't want, and I want what I don't have.

 

M: Why don't you invert it: want what you have and care not

for what you don't have?

 

Q: I want what is pleasant and don't want the painful.

 

M: How do you know what is pleasant and what is not?

 

Q: From past experience, of course.

 

M: Guided by memory, you have been pursuing the pleasant

and shunning the unpleasant, Have you succeeded?

 

Q: No, I have not. The pleasant does not last. Pain sets in again.

 

M: Which pain?

 

Q: The desire for pleasure, the fear of pain, both are states of

distress. Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?

 

M: Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs and instrument. Both

the physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired and

worn out.

The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in

intensity and duration. Pain is the background of all you pleasures.

You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the

very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle.

 

Q: I can see the mechanism of my confusion, but I do not see my way

out of it.

 

M: The very examination of the mechanism shows the way. After

all, your confusion is only in your mind, which never rebelled so

far against confusion and never got to grips with it. It rebelled

only against pain.

 

Q: So all I can do is to stay confused?

 

M: Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about

confusion,

how it operates, what it does to you and others. By

being clear about confusion, you become clear of confusion.

 

Q: When I look into my self, I find my strongest desire is to create

a monument, to build something which will outlast me. Even

when I think of a home, wife and child, it is because it is a lasting

solid, testimony to myself.

 

M: Right build yourself a monument. How do you propose to

do it?

 

Q: It matters little what I build, as long as it is permanent.

 

M: Surely, you can see for yourself that nothing is permanent.

All wears out, breaks down, dissolves. The very ground on which

you build gives way. What can you build that will outlast all?

 

Q: Intellectually, verbally, I am aware that all is transient. Yet,

somehow my heart wants permanency. I want to create

something that lasts.

 

M: Then you must build it of something lasting. What have you

that is lasting? Neither your body not mind will last. You must

seek elsewhere.

 

Q: I want for permanency, but I find it nowhere.

 

M: Are you, yourself, not permanent?

 

Q: I was born, I shall die.

 

M: Can your truly say you were not before your were born and

can you possibly say when dead: 'Now I am no more'? You can

only say 'I am'. Others too cannot tell you 'you are not'.

 

Q: There is not 'I am' in sleep.

 

M: Before you make such sweeping statements, examine

carefully your waking state. You will soon discover that it is full

of gaps, when the mind blanks out. Notice how little you remember

even when fully awake.

You cannot say that you were not conscious during sleep,

you just don't remember. A gap in

memory is not necessarily a gap in consciousness.

 

Q: Can I make myself remember my state of deep sleep?

 

M: Of course! By eliminating the interval of inadvertence during

your waking hours you will gradually eliminate the long intervals

of absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will be aware

that you are asleep.

 

Q: Yet, the problem of permanency, of continuity of being , is not

solved.

 

M: Permanency is a mere idea, born of the action of time. Time

again depends on memory. By permanency you mean unfailing

memory through endless time. You want to eternalize the mind,

Which is not possible.

 

Q: Then what is eternal?

 

M: That which does not change with time. You cannot eternalize

a transient thing - only the changeless is eternal.

 

Q: I am familiar with the general sense of what you say. I do not

crave for more knowledge. All I want is peace.

 

M: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.

 

Q: I am asking.

 

M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated

life.

 

Q: How?

 

M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless.

Renounce all that disturbs it peace. If you want peace,

deserve it.

 

Q: Surely everybody deserves peace.

 

M: Only those deserve it, who don't disturb it.

 

Q: In what way do I disturb peace?

 

Q: By being a slave to your desires and fears.

 

Q: Even when they are justified?

 

M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are

never justified. Seek a clear mind and a clear heart. All you need

is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself.

This is the only way to peace.