Nisargadatta Maharaj tells us to develop the witness attitude

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Q: Does not a jnani feel sorrow when his child dies, does he not suffer?

 

M: He suffers with those who suffer. The event itself is of little

importance, but he is full of compassion for the suffering being, whether

alive or dead, in the body or out of it. After all, love and compassion are

his very nature. He is one with all that lives and love is that oneness in

action.

 

Q: People are very much afraid of death.

 

M: The jnani is afraid of nothing. But he pities the man who is afraid.

After all to be born, to live and to die is natural. To be afraid is not. To

the event, of course, attention is given.

 

Q: Imagine you are ill -- high fever, aches, shivers. The doctor tells you

the condition is serious, there are only a few days to live. What would be

your first reaction?

 

M: No reaction. As it is natural for the incense stick to burn out, so it is

natural for the body to die. Really, it is a matter of very little

importance. What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind. I am.

 

Q: Your family will be desperate, of course. What would you tell them?

 

M: The usual stuff: fear not, life goes on, God will protect you, we shall

be soon together again and

so on. But to me the entire commotion is meaningless, for I am not the

entity that imagines itself alive or dead. I am neither born nor can I die.

I have nothing to remember or to forget.

 

Q: How does the jnani fare after death?

 

M: The jnani is dead already. Do you expect him to die again?

 

Q: Are sin and virtue one and the same?

 

M: These are all man-made values! What are they to me? What ends in

happiness is virtue, what ends in sorrow is sin. Both are states of mind.

Mine is not a State of mind.

 

Q: There is some mystery in it which I cannot fathom. How can the mind be a

part of nature?

 

M: Because nature is in the mind; without the mind where is nature?

 

Q: If nature is in the mind and the mind is my own, I should be able to

control nature, which is not really the case. Forces beyond my control

determine my behaviour.

 

M: Develop the witness attitude and you will find in your own experience

that detachment brings control. The state of witnessing is full of power,

there is nothing passive about it.

 

Source: I am That Book By Nisargadatta Maharaj

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