6.
Meditation
Questioner:
All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of
meditation?
Nisargadatta:
We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our
inner world of thoughts and
feelings
we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to
become conscious of, and
familiar
with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source
of life and consciousness.
Incidentally
practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves
to what we do not
know;
of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in
ourselves we discover and
understand
its causes and its workings, we over-come it by the very knowing;
the unconscious
dissolves
when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the
unconscious releases energy; the
mind
feels adequate and becomes quiet.
Questioner:
What is the use of a quiet mind?
Nisargadatta:
When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure
witness. We withdraw from the
experience
and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is
between and beyond
the
two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining
oneself to be something: 'I am
this,
I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world.
Its identification with the witness
snaps.
Questioner:
As I can make out, I live on many levels and life on each level
requires energy. The self by its
very
nature delights in everything and its energies flow outwards. Is
it not the purpose of meditation
to
dam up the energies on the higher levels, or to push them back and
up, so as to enable the
higher
levels to prosper also?
Nisargadatta:
It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities).
Meditation is a sattvic activity and
aims
at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity).
Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect
freedom
from sloth and restlessness.
Questioner:
How to strengthen and purify the sattva?
Nisargadatta:
The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It may
seem obscured by clouds and dust,
but
only from the point of view of the perceiver. Deal with the causes
of obscuration, not with
the
sun.
Questioner:
What is the use of sattva?
Nisargadatta:
What is the use of truth, goodness, harmony, beauty? They are
their own goal. They manifest
spontaneously
and effortlessly, when things are left to themselves, are not
interfered with, not
shunned,
or wanted, or conceptualised, but just experienced in full
awareness, such awareness
itself
is sattva. It does not make use of things and people -- it fulfils
them.
Questioner:
Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and rajas
only? How can I deal with them?
Nisargadatta:
By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of them in
operation, watch their
expressions
in your thoughts, words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you
will lessen and the
clear
light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult, nor a
protracted process; earnestness is the
only
condition of success.