37.
Beyond Pain and Pleasure there is Bliss
Nisargadatta:
You must realise first of all that you are the proof of
everything, including yourself. None
can
prove your existence, because his existence must be confirmed by
you first. Your being and
knowing
you owe nobody. Remember, you are entirely on your own. You do not
come from
somewhere,
you do not go anywhere. You are timeless being and awareness.
Questioner:
There is a basic difference between us. You know the real while I
know only the
workings
of my mind. Therefore what you say is one thing, what I hear is
another. What you say is
true;
what I understand is false, though the words are the same. There
is a gap between us. How to
close
the gap?
Nisargadatta:
Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be and there
will be no gap. By imagining
yourself
as separate you have created the gap. You need not cross it. Just
don't create it. All is you
and
yours. There is nobody else. This is a fact.
Questioner:
How strange! The very same words which to you are true, to me are
false. 'There is nobody
else'.
How obviously untrue!
Nisargadatta:
Let them be true or untrue. Words don't matter. What matters is
the idea you have of yourself,
for
it blocks you. Give it up.
Questioner:
From early childhood I was taught to think that I am limited to my
name and shape. A mere
statement
to the contrary will not erase the mental groove. A regular
brain-washing is needed -- if at
all
it can be done.
Nisargadatta:
You call it brain-washing, I call it Yoga -- levelling up all the
mental ruts. You must not be
compelled
to think the same thoughts again and again. Move on!
Questioner:
Easier said than done.
Nisargadatta:
Don't be childish! Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow out of
your childishness, that is all.
Questioner:
Such things are not done. They happen.
Nisargadatta:
Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it.
Readiness is ripeness. You do not
see
the real because your mind is not ready for it.
Questioner:
If reality is my real nature, how can I ever be unready?
Nisargadatta:
Unready means afraid. You are afraid of what you are. Your
destination is the whole. But you
are
afraid that you will lose your identity. This is childishness,
clinging to the toys, to your desires
and
fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the
real to assert itself. This self-
assertion
is best expressed in words: 'I am'. Nothing else has being. Of
this you are absolutely
certain.
Questioner:
'I am', of course, but 'I know' also. And I know that I am so and
so, the owner of the body, in
manifold
relations with other owners.
Nisargadatta:
It is all memory carried over into the now.
Questioner:
I can be certain only of what is now. Past and future, memory and
imagination, these are
mental
states, but they are all I know and they are now. You are telling
me to abandon them. How
does
one abandon the now?
Nisargadatta:
You are moving into the future all the time whether you like it or
not.
Questioner:
I am moving from now into now -- I do not move at all. Everything
else moves -- not me.
Nisargadatta:
Granted. But your mind does move. In the now you are both the
movable and the immovable.
So
far you took yourself to be the movable and overlooked the
immovable. Turn your mind inside
out.
Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the
ever-present, changeless reality,
inexpressible,
but solid like a rock.
Questioner:
If it is now, why am I not aware of it?
Nisargadatta:
Because you hold on to the idea that you are not aware of it. Let
go the idea.
Questioner:
It does not make me aware.
Nisargadatta:
Wait. You want to be on both sides of the wall at the same time.
You can, but you must remove
the
wall. Or realise that the wall and both sides of it are one single
space, to which no idea like
'here'
or 'there' applies.
Questioner:
Similes prove nothing. My only complaint is this: why do I not see
what you see, why your
words
do not sound true in my mind. Let me know this much; all else can
wait. You are wise and I
am
stupid; you see, I don't. Where and how shall I find my wisdom?
Nisargadatta:
If you know yourself to be stupid, you are not stupid at all!
Questioner:
Just as knowing myself sick does not make me well, so knowing
myself foolish can not make
me
wise.
Nisargadatta:
To know that you are ill must you not be well initially?
Questioner:
Oh, no. I know by comparison. If I am blind from birth and you
tell me that you know things
without
touching them, while I must touch to know, I am aware that I am
blind without knowing what
does
it mean to see. Similarly, I know that I am lacking something when
you assert things which I
cannot
grasp. You are telling me such wonderful things about myself;
according to you I am eternal,
omnipresent,
omniscient, supremely happy, creator, preserver and destroyer of
all there is, the
source
of all life, the heart of being, the lord and the beloved of every
creature. You equate me with
the
Ultimate Reality, the source and the goal of all existence. I just
blink, for I know myself to be a
tiny
little bundle of desires and fears, a bubble of suffering, a
transient flash of consciousness in an
ocean
of darkness.
Nisargadatta:
Before pain was, you were. After pain had gone, you remained. Pain
is transient, you are not.
Questioner:
I am sorry, but I do not see what you see. From the day I was born
till the day I die, pain and
pleasure
will weave the pattern of my life. Of being before birth and after
death I know nothing. I
neither
accept nor deny you. I hear what you say, but I do not know it.
Nisargadatta:
Now you are conscious, are you not?
Questioner:
Please do not ask me about before and after. I just know only what
is now.
Nisargadatta:
Good enough. You are conscious. Hold on to it. There are states
when you are not conscious.
Call
it unconscious being.
Questioner:
Being unconscious?
Nisargadatta:
Consciousness and unconsciousness do not apply here. Existence is
in consciousness,
essence
is independent of consciousness.
Questioner:
It is void? Is it silence?
Nisargadatta:
Why elaborate? Being pervades and transcends consciousness.
Objective consciousness is a
part
of pure consciousness, not beyond it.
Questioner:
How do you come to know a state of pure being which is neither
conscious nor unconscious?
All
knowledge is in consciousness only. There may be such a state as
the abeyance of the mind.
Does
consciousness then appear as the witness?
Nisargadatta:
The witness only registers events. In the abeyance of the mind
even the sense 'I am' dissolves.
There
is no 'I am' without the mind.
Questioner:
Without the mind means without thoughts. 'I am' as a thought
subsides. 'I am' as the sense of
being
remains.
Nisargadatta:
All experience subsides with the mind. Without the mind there can
be no experiencer nor
experience.
Questioner:
Does not the witness remain?
Nisargadatta:
The witness merely registers the presence or absence of
experience. It is not an experience by
itself,
but it becomes an experience when the thought: 'I am the witness'
arises.
Questioner:
All I know is that sometimes the mind works and sometimes it
stops. The experience of mental
silence
I call the abeyance of the mind.
Nisargadatta:
Call it silence, or void, or abeyance, the fact is that the three
-- experiencer, experiencing,
experience
-- are not. In witnessing, in awareness, self-consciousness, the
sense of being this or
that,
is not. Unidentified being remains.
Questioner:
As a state of unconsciousness?
Nisargadatta:
With reference to anything, it is the opposite. It is also between
and beyond all opposites. It is
neither
consciousness nor unconsciousness, nor midway, nor beyond the two.
It is by itself, not with
reference
to anything which may be called experience or its absence.
Questioner:
How strange! You speak of it as if it were an experience.
Nisargadatta:
When I think of it -- it becomes an experience.
Questioner:
Like the invisible light, intercepted by a flower, becoming
colour?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, you may say so. It is in the colour but not the colour.
Questioner:
The same old four-fold negation of Nagarjuna : neither this nor
that, nor both, nor either. My
mind
reels!
Nisargadatta:
Your difficulty stems from the idea that reality is a state of
consciousness, one among many.
You
tend to say: "This is real. That is not real. And this is partly
real, partly unreal", as if reality were
an
attribute or quality to have in varying measures.
Questioner:
Let me put it differently. After all, consciousness becomes a
problem only when it is painful. An
ever-blissful
state does not give rise to questions. We find all consciousness
to be a mixture of the
pleasant
and the painful. Why?
Nisargadatta:
All consciousness is limited and therefore painful. At the root of
consciousness lies desire, the
urge
to experience.
Questioner:
Do you mean to say that without desire there can be no
consciousness? And what is the
advantage
of being unconscious? If I have to forego pleasure for the freedom
from pain, I better
keep
both.
Nisargadatta:
Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss.
Questioner:
Unconscious bliss, of what use is it?
Nisargadatta:
Neither conscious nor unconscious. Real.
Questioner:
What is your objection to consciousness?
Nisargadatta:
It is a burden. Body means burden. Sensations, desires, thoughts
-- these are all burdens. All
consciousness
is of conflict.
Questioner:
Reality is described as true being, pure consciousness, infinite
bliss. What has pain to do with
it?
Nisargadatta:
Pain and pleasure happen, but pain is the price of pleasure,
pleasure is the reward of pain. In
life
too you often please by hurting and hurt by pleasing. To know that
pain and pleasure are one is
peace.
Questioner:
All this is very interesting, no doubt, but my goal is more
simple. I want more pleasure and less
pain
in life. What am I to do?
Nisargadatta:
As long as there is consciousness, there must be pleasure and
pain. It is in the nature of the 'I
am',
of consciousness, to identify itself with the opposites.
Questioner:
Then of what use is all this to me? It does not satisfy.
Nisargadatta:
Who are you, who is unsatisfied?
Questioner:
I am, the pain-pleasure man.
Nisargadatta:
Pain and pleasure are both ananda (bliss). Here I am sitting in
front of you and telling you --
from
my own immediate and unchanging experience -- pain and pleasure
are the crests and valleys
of
the waves in the ocean of bliss. Deep down there is utter
fullness.
Questioner:
Is your experience constant?
Nisargadatta:
It is timeless and changeless.
Questioner:
All I know is desire for pleasure and fear of pain.
Nisargadatta:
That is what you think about yourself. Stop it. If you cannot
break a habit all at once, consider
the
familiar way of thinking and see its falseness. Questioning the
habitual is the duty of the mind.
What
the mind created, the mind must destroy. Or realise that there is
no desire outside the mind
and
stay out.
Questioner:
Honestly, I distrust this explaining everything as mind-made. The
mind is only an instrument, as
the
eye is an instrument. Can you say that perception is creation? I
see the world through the
window,
not in the window. All you say holds well together because of the
common foundation, but I
do
not know whether your foundation is in reality, or only in the
mind. I can have only a mental
picture
of it. What it means to you I do not know.
Nisargadatta:
As long as you take your stand in the mind, you will see me in the
mind.
Questioner:
How inadequate are words for understanding!
Nisargadatta:
Without words, what is there to understand? The need for
understanding arises from mis-
understanding.
What I say is true, but to you it is only a theory. How will you
come to know that it is
true?
Listen, remember, ponder, visualise, experience. Also apply it in
your daily life. Have patience
with
me and, above all have patience with yourself, for you are your
only obstacle. The way leads
through
yourself beyond yourself. As long as you believe only the
particular to be real, conscious
and
happy and reject the non-dual reality as something imagined, an
abstract concept, you will find
me
doling out concepts and abstractions. But once you have touched
the real within your own
being,
you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and the
dearest.