24.
God is the All-doer, the Jnani a Non-doer
Questioner:
Some Mahatmas (enlightened beings) maintain that the world
is neither an accident nor a play
of
God, but the result and expression of a mighty plan of work
aiming at awakening and
developing
consciousness throughout the universe. From lifelessness to
life, from unconsciousness
to
consciousness, from dullness to bright intelligence, from
misapprehension to clarity -- that is the
direction
in which the world moves ceaselessly and relentlessly. Of
course, there are moments of
rest
and apparent darkness, when the universe seems to be
dormant, but the rest comes to an end
and
the work on consciousness is resumed. From our point of view
the world is a dale of tears, a
place
to escape from, as soon as possible and by every possible
means. To enlightened beings the
world
is good and it serves a good purpose. They do not deny that
the world is a mental structure
and
that ultimately all is one, but they see and say that the
structure has meaning and serves a
supremely
desirable purpose. What we call the will of God is not a
capricious whim of a playful
deity,
but the expression of an absolute necessity to grow in love
and wisdom and power, to
actualise
the infinite potentials of life and consciousness.
Just
as a gardener grows flowers from a tiny seed to glorious
perfection, so does God in His own
garden
grow, among other beings, men to supermen, who know and love
and work along with Him.
When
God takes rest (pralaya), those whose growth was not
completed, become unconscious for a
time,
while the perfect ones, who have gone beyond all forms and
contents of consciousness,
remain
aware of the universal silence. When the time comes for the
emergence of a new universe,
the
sleepers wake up and their work starts. The more advanced
wake up first and prepare the
ground
for the less advanced -- who thus find forms and patterns of
behaviour suitable for their
further
growth.
Thus
runs the story. The difference with your teaching is this:
you insist that the world is no good
and
should be shunned. They say that distaste for the world is a
passing stage, necessary, yet
temporary,
and is soon replaced by an all-pervading love, and a steady
will to work with God.
Nisargadatta:
All you say is right for the outgoing (pravritti) path. For
the path of return (nivritti) naughting oneself
is
necessary. My stand I take where nothing (paramakash) is;
words do not reach there, nor
thoughts.
To the mind it is all darkness and silence. Then
consciousness begins to stir and wakes
up
the mind (chidakash), which projects the world (mahadakash),
built of memory and
imagination.
Once the world comes into being, all you say may be so. It
is in the nature of the mind
to
imagine goals, to strive towards them, to seek out means and
ways, to display vision, energy and
courage.
These are divine attributes and I do not deny them. But I
take my stand where no
difference
exists, where things are not, nor the minds that create
them. There I am at home.
Whatever
happens, does not affect me -- things act on things, that is
all. Free from memory and
expectation,
I am fresh, innocent and wholehearted. Mind is the great
worker (mahakarta) and it
needs
rest. Needing nothing, I am unafraid. Whom to be afraid of?
There is no separation, we are
not
separate selves. There is only one Self, the Supreme
Reality, in which the personal and the
impersonal
are one.
Questioner:
All I want is to be able to help the world.
Nisargadatta:
Who says you cannot help? You made up your mind about what
help means and needs and got
your
self into a conflict between what you should and what you
can, between necessity and ability.
Questioner:
But why do we do so?
Nisargadatta:
Your mind projects a structure and you identify yourself
with it. It is in the nature of desire to
prompt
the mind to create a world for its fulfilment. Even a small
desire can start a long line of
action;
what about a strong desire? Desire can produce a universe;
its powers are miraculous. Just
as
a small matchstick can set a huge forest on fire, so does a
desire light the fires of manifestation.
The
very purpose of creation is the fulfilment of desire. The
desire may be noble, or ignoble, space
(akash)
is neutral -- one can fill it with what one likes: You must
be very careful as to what you
desire.
And as to the people you want to help, they are in their
respective worlds for the sake of
their
desires; there is no way of helping them except through
their desires. You can only teach them
to
have right desires so that they may rise above them and be
free from the urge to create and re-
create
worlds of desires, abodes of pain and pleasure.
Questioner:
A day must come when the show is wound up; a man must die, a
universe come to an end.
Nisargadatta:
Just as a sleeping man forgets all and wakes up for another
day, or he dies and emerges into
another
life, so do the worlds of desire and fear dissolve and
disappear. But the universal witness,
the
Supreme Self never sleeps and never dies. Eternally the
Great Heart beats and at each beat a
new
universe comes into being.
Questioner:
Is he conscious?
Nisargadatta:
He is beyond all that the mind conceives. He is beyond being
and not being. He is the Yes and
No
to everything, beyond and within, creating and destroying,
unimaginably real.
Questioner:
God and the Mahatma are they one or two?
Nisargadatta:
They are one.
Questioner:
There must be some difference.
Nisargadatta:
God is the All-Doer, the jnani is a non-doer. God himself
does not say: 'I am doing all.' To Him
things
happen by their own nature. To the jnani all is done by God.
He sees no difference between
God
and nature. Both God and the jnani know themselves to be the
immovable centre of the
movable,
the eternal witness of the transient. The centre is a point
of void and the witness a point of
pure
awareness; they know themselves to be as nothing, therefore
nothing can resist them.
Questioner:
How does this look and feel in your personal experience?
Nisargadatta:
Being nothing, I am all. Everything is me, everything is
mine. Just as my body moves by my
mere
thinking of the movement, so do things happen as I think of
them. Mind you, I do nothing. I
just
see them happen.
Questioner:
Do things happen as you want them to happen, or do you want
them to happen as they
happen?
Nisargadatta:
Both. I accept and am accepted. I am all and all is me.
Being the world I am not afraid of the
world.
Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of
water, nor fire of fire. Also I am not
afraid
because I am nothing that can experience fear, or can be in
danger. I have no shape, nor
name.
It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am
not attached. I am nothing, and
nothing
is afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid
of the Nothing, for when a thing
touches
Nothing, it becomes nothing. It is like a bottomless well,
whatever falls into it, disappears.
Questioner:
Isn't God a person?
Nisargadatta:
As long as you think yourself to be a person, He too is a
person. When you are all, you see Him
as
all.
Questioner:
Can I change facts by changing attitude?
Nisargadatta:
The attitude is the fact. Take anger. I may be furious,
pacing the room up and down; at the
same
time I know what I am, a centre of wisdom and love, an atom
of pure existence. All subsides
and
the mind merges into silence.
Questioner:
Still, you are angry sometimes.
Nisargadatta:
With whom am l to be angry and for what? Anger came and
dissolved on my remembering
myself.
It is all a play of gunas (qualities of cosmic matter). When
I identify myself with them, I am
their
slave. When I stand apart, I am their master.
Questioner:
Can you influence the world by your attitude? By separating
yourself from the world you lose all
hope
of helping it.
Nisargadatta:
How can it be? All is myself -- can't I help myself? I do
not identify myself with anybody in
particular,
for I am all -- both the particular and the universal.
Questioner:
Can you then help me, the particular person?
Nisargadatta:
But I do help you always -- from within. My self and your
self are one. I know it, but you don't.
That
is all the difference -- and it cannot last.
Questioner:
And how do you help the entire world?
Nisargadatta:
Gandhi is dead, yet his mind pervades the earth. The thought
of a jnani pervades humanity and
works
ceaselessly for good. Being anonymous, coming from within,
it is the more powerful and
compelling.
That is how the world improves -- the inner aiding and
blessing the outer. When a
jnani
dies, he is no more, in the same sense in which a river is
no more when it merges in the sea, the
name,
the shape, are no more, but the water remains and becomes
one with the ocean. When a
jnani
joins the universal mind, all his goodness and wisdom become
the heritage of humanity and
uplift
every human being.
Questioner:
We are attached to our personality. Our individuality, our
being unlike others, we value very
much.
You seem to denounce both as useless. Your unmanifested, of
what use is it to us?
Nisargadatta:
Unmanifested, manifested, individuality, personality
(nirguna, saguna, vyakta, vyakti); all these
are
mere words, points of view, mental attitudes. There is no
reality in them. The real is experienced
in
silence. You cling to personality -- but you are conscious
of being a person only when you are in
trouble
-- when you are not in trouble you do not think of yourself.
Questioner:
You did not tell me the uses of the Unmanifested.
Nisargadatta:
Surely, you must sleep in order to wake up. You must die in
order to live, you must melt down to
shape
anew. You must destroy to build, annihilate before creation.
The Supreme is the universal
solvent,
it corrodes every container, it burns through every
obstacle. Without the absolute denial of
everything
the tyranny of things would be absolute. The Supreme is the
great harmoniser, the
guarantee
of the ultimate and perfect balance -- of life in freedom.
It dissolves you and thus re-
asserts
your true being.
Questioner:
It is all well on its own level. But how does it work in
daily life?
Nisargadatta:
The daily life is a life of action. Whether you like it or
not, you must function. Whatever you do
for
your own sake accumulates and becomes explosive; one day it
goes off and plays havoc with
you
and your world. When you deceive yourself that you work for
the good of all, it makes matters
worse,
for you should not be guided by your own ideas of what is
good for others. A man who
claims
to know what is good for others, is dangerous.
Questioner:
How is one to work then?
Nisargadatta:
Neither for yourself nor for others, but for the work's own
sake. A thing worth doing is its own
purpose
and meaning, Make nothing a means to something else. Bind
not. God does not create
one
thing to serve another. Each is made for its own sake.
Because it is made for itself, it does not
interfere.
You are using things and people for purposes alien to them
and you play havoc with the
world
and yourself.
Questioner:
Our real being is all the time with us, you say. How is it
that we do not notice it?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, you are always the Supreme. But your attention is fixed
on things, physical or mental.
When
your attention is off a thing and not yet fixed on another,
in the interval you are pure being.
When
through the practice of discrimination and detachment
(viveka-vairagya), you lose sight of
sensory
and mental states, pure being emerges as the natural state.
Questioner:
How does one bring to an end this sense of separateness?
Nisargadatta:
By focussing the mind on 'I am', on the sense of being, 'I
am so-and-so' dissolves; "I am a
witness
only" remains and that too submerges in 'I am all'. Then the
all becomes the One and the
One
-- yourself, not to be separate from me. Abandon the idea of
a separate 'I' and the question of
'whose
experience?' will not arise.
Questioner:
You speak from your own experience. How can I make it mine?
Nisargadatta:
You speak of my experience as different from your
experience, because you believe we are
separate.
But we are not. On a deeper level my experience is your
experience. Dive deep within
yourself
and you will find it easily and simply. Go in the direction
of 'I am'.