Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Guest guest]

I Am That.. Chapter 26

 

Personality an Obstacle

 

Q: As I can see, the world is a school of Yoga and life itself is Yoga

practice. Everybody strives for perfection and what is Yoga but

striving. there is nothing contemptible about the So-called 'common'

people and their 'common lives. They strive as hard and suffer as much

as the Yogi, only they are not conscious

Maharaj: In what way are your common people - Yoga?

Q: Their ultimate goal is the same. What the Yogi secures by

renunciation (tyaga) the common man realized through experience

(bhoga). The way of Bhoga is unconscious and, therefore, repetitive

and protracted, while the way of Yoga is deliberate and intense and ,

therefore, can be more rapid.

M: Maybe the periods of Yoga and Bhoga alternate. First Bhogi, then

Yogi, the Bhogi, then again Yogi.

Q: What may be the purpose?

M: Weak desire can be removed by introspection and meditation, but

strong, deep-rooted ones must be fulfilled and their fruits, sweet or

bitter, tasted.

Q: Why then should we pay tribute to Yogis and speak slightingly of

Bhogis? All are Yogis, in a way.

M: On the human scale of values deliberate effort is considered

praiseworthy. In reality both the Yogi and Bhogi follow their own

nature, according to circumstances and opportunities. The Yogi's life

is governed by a single desire - to find the Truth; the Bhogi serves

many masters. But the Bhogi becomes a Yogi and the Yogi may get a

rounding up in a bout of Bhoga. The final result is the same.

Q: Buddha is reported to have said that it is tremendously important

to have heard that there is enlightenment, a complete reversal and

transformation in consciousness. The good news is compared to a spark

in a shipload of cotton; slowly but relentlessly the whole of it will

turn to ashes. Similarly the good news of enlightenment will, sooner

or later, bring about a transformation.

M: Yes, first hearing (shravana), then remembering (smarana),

pondering (manana) and so on. We are on familiar ground. The man who

heard the news becomes a Yogi; while the rest continue in their Bhoga.

Q: But you agree that living a life - just living the humdrum life of

the world, being born to die and dying to be born - advances man by

its sheer volume, just like the river finds its way to the sea by the

sheer mass of the water it gathers.

M: Before the world was, consciousness was. In consciousness it comes

into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure consciousness it

dissolves. At the root of everything, is the feeling 'I am'. The

state of mind: 'there is a world' is secondary, for to be, I do not

need the world, the world needs me.

Q: The desire to live is a tremendous thing.

M: Still greater is the freedom from the urge to live.

Q: The freedom of the stone?

M: Yes the freedom of the stone, and much more besides. Freedom

unlimited and conscious.

Q: Is not personality required for gathering experience?

M: As you are now, the personality is only an obstacle.

Self-identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true

growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one

should outgrow body-based desires early in life. Even the Bhogi, who

does not refuse enjoyments, need not hanker after the ones he has

tasted. Habit, desire for repetition, frustrates both the Yogi and the

Bhogi.

Q: Why do you keep on dismissing the person vyakti) as of no

importance? Personality is the primary fact of our existence. It

occupies the entire stage.

M: As long as you do not see that it is mere habit, built on memory,

prompted by desire, you will think yourself to be a person- living,

feeling, thinking, active, passive, please or pained. Question

yourself, ask yourself. 'Is it so?' 'Who am I? 'What is behind and

beyond all this? And soon you will see your mistake. And it is in the

very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

Q: The Yoga of living, of life itself, we may call the Natural Yoga

(nisarga yoga) It reminds me of the Primal Yoga (adhi yoga) mentioned

in the Rg-Veda which was described as the marrying of life with mind.

M: A life lived thoughtfully, in full awareness, is by itself Nisarga

Yoga.

Q: What does the marriage of life and mind mean?

M: Living in spontaneous awareness, consciousness of effortless

living, being fully interested in one's life - all this is implied

Q: Sharad Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, used to scold his

disciples for too much effort. she compared them to mangoes on the

tree which are being plucked before they are ripe. 'Why hurry?' she

used to ask. 'Wait till you are fully ripe, mellow an sweet,'

M: How right she was! There are so many who take the dawn for the

noon, a momentary experience for realization, and destroy even the

little they gain by excess pride. Humility and silence are essential

for a sadhaka, however advanced. Only a fully ripened gnani can allow

himself complete spontaneity.

Q: It seems there are schools of Yoga where the student, after

illumination, is obliged to keep silent for 7 or 12 or 15 or even 25

years. Even Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi imposed on himself 20 years

of silence before he began to teach.

M: Yes, the inner fruit must ripen. Until then the discipline, the

living in awareness, must go on. Gradually the practice becomes more

and more subtle, until it becomes altogether formless.

Q: Krishnamurti too, speaks of living in awareness.

M: He always aims directly at the 'ultimate. Yes, ultimately all Yogas

end in your adhi yoga, the marriage of consciousness (the bride) to

life (the bridegroom. Consciousness and being (sadchit) meet in bliss

(ananda). For bliss to arise there must be meeting, contact, the

assertion of unity in duality.

Q: Buddha too, has said that for the attainment of nirvana one must go

to living being. Consciousness needs life to grow.

M: The world itself is contact - the totality of all contacts

actualized in consciousness. The spirit touches matter and

consciousness results. Such consciousness, when tainted with memory

and expectation, becomes bondage. Pure experience does not bind;

experience caught between desire and fear is impure and creates karma.

Q: Can there be happiness in unity? Does not all happiness necessarily

imply contact, hence duality?

M: There is nothing wrong with duality as long as it does not create

conflict. Multiplicity and variety without strife is joy. In pure

consciousness there is light. For warmth, contact is needed. Above the

unity of being is the union of love, Love is the meaning and purpose

of duality.

Q: I am an adopted child. I do not know my own father. My mother died

when I was born. My foster father, to please my foster mother, who was

childless, adopted me - almost by accident. He is a simple man - a

truck owner and driver. My mother keeps the house. I am 24 years now.

For the last two and a half years I have been traveling, restless,

seeking. I want to live a good life, a holy life. What am I to do?

M: Go home, take charge of your father's business, look after your

parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be

loyal, be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently. The five

senses and the three qualities (gunas) are your eight steps in Yoga.

And 'I am' is the great Reminder (mahamantra). You can learn from them

all you need to know. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly. That is all.

Q: If just living one's life liberates, why are not all liberated?

M: All are being liberated. Is is not what you live, but how you live

that matters. The idea of enlightenment is of utmost importance. Just

to know that there is such a possibility, changes ones entire outlook.

It acts like a burning match in a heap of saw dust. All the great

teachers did nothing else. A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of

lies. The opposite is also true. The sun of truth remains hidden

behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.

Q: This spreading the good news of enlightenment seems very important.

M: The very hearing of it, is a promise of enlightenment. The very

meeting with a Guru is the assurance of liberation. Perfection is

life-giving and creative.

Q: Does a realized man every think: 'I am realized?' is he not

astonished when people make much of him? Does he not take himself to

be an ordinary human being?

M: Neither ordinary, nor extraordinary. Just being aware and

affectionate- intensely. He looks at himself without indulging in

self-definition and self-identifications. He does not know himself as

anything apart from the world. He is the world. he is completely rid

of himself, like a man who is very rich, but continually gives away

his riches. He is not rich, for he has nothing; he is not poor, for he

gives abundantly. He is just property-less. Similarly, the realized

man is egoless; he has lost the capacity of identifying himself with

anything. He is without location, placeless, beyond space and time,

beyond the world. Beyond words and thoughts is he.

Q: Well, it is deep mystery to me. I am simple man.

M: It is you who are deep, complex, mysterious, hard to understand. I

am simplicity itself, compared to you. I am what is- without any

distinction whatsoever into inner and outer, mine and yours, good and

bad. What the world is, I am; what I am the world is.

Q: How does it happen that each man creates his own world?

M: When a number of people are asleep, each dreams his own dream. Only

on awakening the question of many different dreams arises and

dissolves when they are all seen as dreams, as something imagined.

Q: Even dreams have a foundation.

M: In memory, Even then, what is remembered, is but another dream. The

memory of the false cannot but give rise to the false. There is

nothing wrong with memory as such. What is false is its content.

Remember facts, forget opinions.

Q: What is fact?

M: What is perceived in pure awareness unaffected by desire and fear

is fact.