Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Guest guest]

Appearances and the Reality

 

Q: Repeatedly you have been saying that events are

causeless, a thing just happens and no cause can be assigned to

it. Surely, everything has a cause, or several causes. How am I to

understand the ceaselessness of things?

 

Nisargadatta Maharaj: From the highest point of view the world has no

cause.

 

Q: But what is your own experience?

M: Everything is uncaused. The world has no cause.

Q: I am not enquiring about the causes that led to the creation of

the world. Who has seen the creation of the world? It may even

be without a beginning, always existing. But I am not talking of

the world. I take the world to exist - somehow. It contains so

many things. Surely, each much have a cause, or several causes.

M: Once you create for yourself a world in time and space,

governed by causality, you are bound to search for and find

causes for everything. You put the question and impose an

answer.

Q: My question is very simple: I see all kinds of things and

I understand that each must have a cause, or a number of causes.

You say they are uncaused - from your point of view. But, to you

nothing has been and, therefore, the question of causation does

not arise. Yet you seem to admit the existence of things, but deny

them causation. This is what I cannot grasp. Once you accept the

existence of things, why reject their causes?

M: I see only consciousness, and know everything to be but

consciousness, as you know the picture on the cinema screen to

be but light.

Q: Still, the movement of light has a cause.

M: The light does not move at all. You know very well that the

movement is illusory, a sequence of interceptions and colorings

in the film. What moves is the film - which is the mind.

Q: This does not make the picture causeless. The film is there,

and the actors with the technicians, the director. the producer,

the various manufacturers. The world is governed by causality.

Everything is inter-linked.

M: Of course, everything is inter-linked. And therefore

everything has numberless causes. The entire universe

contributes to the least thing. A thing is as it is, because the world

is as it is. You see, you deal in gold ornaments and I - in gold.

Between the different ornaments there is no causal relation. When

You melt down an ornament to make another, there is no causal

relation between the two. The common factor is the gold. But

you cannot say gold is the cause. It is reflected in the mind as

'I am', as the ornament's particular name and shape. Yet all is

only gold. In the same way, reality makes everything possible

and yet, nothing that makes a thing what it is, its name and form,

comes from reality.

 

But why worry so much about causation? What do causes

matter, when things themselves are transient? Let come what

comes and let go what goes - why catch hold of things and

enquire about their causes?

Q: From the relative point of view, everything must have a cause.

M: Of what use is the relative view to you? You are able to look

from the absolute point of view - why go back to the relative?

Are you afraid of the absolute?

Q: I am afraid. I am afraid of falling asleep over my so-called

absolute certainties. For living a life decently, absolutes don't

help.

When you need a shirt, you buy cloth, call a tailor, and so on.

M: All this talk shows ignorance.

Q: And what is the knower's view?

M: There is only light and the light is all. Everything else is but a

picture mode of light. The picture is in the light and the light is

in the picture. Life and death, self and non-self - abandon all

these ideas. They are of no use to you.

Q: From what point of view do you deny causation? From the

relative- the universe is the cause of everything. From the

absolute - there is no thing at all.

M: From which state are you asking?

Q: From the daily waking state, is which alone all these discussions

take place.

M: In the waking state all these problems arise, for such is its

nature. But, you are not always in that state. What good can you do

in a state into which you fall and from which you emerge,

helplessly. In what way does it help you to know that things are

causally related -

as they may appear to be in your waking state?

Q: The world and the waking state emerge and subside together.

M: When the mind is still, absolutely silent, the waking state is no

more.

Q: Words like 'God','universe', 'the total', 'absolute', 'supreme'

are just noise in the air, because no action can be taken on them.

M: You are bringing up questions which you alone can answer.

Q: Don't brush me off like this! You are so quick to speak for the

totality, the universe and such imaginary things! They cannot

came and forbid your to talk on their behalf. I hate those

irresponsible generalization! And you are so prone to

personalize them. Without causality there will be not order; nor

will purposeful action be possible.

M: So you want to know all the causes of each event? Is it

possible?

Q: Every morning I pick up the newspaper and read with

dismay that the world's sorrow - poverty, hatred and wars -

continue unabated. My questions concern the fact of sorrow, the

cause, the remedy. Don't brush me off saying that it is Buddhism!

Don't label me. Your insistence of ceaselessness removes all hope

of the world ever changing.

M: You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world,

not the world in you. Who came first - you or your

parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and

place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name.

This is your sin and your calamity! Surely, you can change your world

if you work at it. By all means work. Who stops you?

I have never discouraged you. Cause or no causes, you have

made this world and you can change it.

Q: A causeless world is entirely beyond my control.

M: On the contrary, a world of which you are the only source

and ground, is fully within your power to change. What is created

can always be dissolved and re-created. All will happen as

you want it, provided you really want it.

Q: All I want to know is how to deal with the world's sorrows.

M: You have created them out of your own desires and fears,

You deal with them. All is due to your having forgotten your

own being. Having given reality to the picture on the screen,

you love its people and suffer for them and seek to save them. It

is just not so. You must begin with yourself. There is no other

way. Work, of course. There is no harm in working.

Q: Your universe seems to contain every possible experience.

The individual traces a line through it and experiences pleasant

and unpleasant states. This gives rise to questioning and

seeking, which broaden the outlook and enables the individual

to go beyond this narrow and self-created world, limited and

self-centered. This personal world can be changed - in time. The

universe is timeless and perfect.

M: To take appearances for reality is a grievous sin and the cause

of all calamities. You are the all-pervading, eternal and infinitely

creative awareness - consciousness. All else is local and temporary.

Don't forget what you are. In the meantime work to your

heart's content. Work and knowledge go hand in hand.

Q: My own feeing is that my spiritual development is not in

my hands. Making one's own plans and carrying them out

leads nowhere. I just run is circles round myself. when God

considers the fruit to be ripe, He will pluck it and eat it. Whichever

fruit seems green to Him will remain on the world's tree for

another day.

M: You thinking God knows you? Even the world He does not know.

Q: Yours is a different God. Mind is different. Mine is merciful.

He suffers along with us.

M: You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop

dying, there will be no space on earth.

Q: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with sorrow and

suffering. My God is a simple God rather helpless. he has

no power to compel us to be wise. He can only stand and wait.

M: If you and your God are both helpless, does it not imply that

the world is accidental? And if it is, the only thing you can do it

to go beyond it.