62.
In the Supreme the Witness Appears
Questioner:
Some forty years ago J. Krishnamurti said that there is life
only and all talk of
personalities
and individualities has no foundation in reality. He did not
attempt to describe life -- he
merely
said that while life need not and cannot be described, it can
be fully experienced, if the
obstacles
to its being experienced are removed. The main hindrance lies
in our idea of, and
addiction
to, time, in our habit of anticipating a future in the light
of the past. The sum total of the
past
becomes the 'I was', the hoped for future becomes the 'I shall
be' and life is a constant effort of
crossing
over from what 'I was' to what ‘I shall be'. The present
moment, the. 'now' is lost sight of.
Maharaj
speaks of 'I am'. Is it an illusion, like 'I was' and 'I shall
be', or is there something real about
it?
And if the ‘I am' too is an illusion, how does one free
oneself from it? The very notion of I am free
of
'I am' is an absurdity. Is there something real, something
lasting about the 'I am' in distinction
from
the 'I was', or ‘I shall be', which change with time, as added
memories create new
expectations?
Nisargadatta
Maharaj:
The present 'I am' is as false as the 'I was' and 'I shall
be'. It is merely an idea in the mind,
an
impression left by memory, and the separate identity it
creates is false. this habit of referring to a
false
centre must be done away with, the notion 'I see', 'I feel',
'I think', 'I do', must disappear from
the
field of consciousness; what remains when the false is no
more, is real.
Questioner:
What is this big talk about elimination of the self? How can
the self eliminate itself? What kind
of
metaphysical acrobatics can lead to the disappearance of the
acrobat? In the end he will
reappear,
mightily proud of his disappearing.
Nisargadatta:
You need not chase the 'I am' to kill it. You cannot. All you
need is a sincere longing for reality.
We
call it atma-bhakti, the love of the Supreme: or
moksha-sankalpa, the determination to be free
from
the false. Without love, and will inspired by love, nothing
can be done. Merely talking about
Reality
without doing anything about it is self-defeating. There must
be love in the relation between
the
person who says 'I am' and the observer of that 'I am'. As
long as the observer, the inner self,
the
'higher' self, considers himself apart from the observed, the
'lower' self, despises it and
condemns
it, the situation is hopeless. It is only when the observer
(vyakta) accepts the person
(vyakti)
as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say,
takes the self into the Self, the
duality
of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and
the inner the Supreme Reality
manifests
itself.
This
union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes
conscious of himself as the
seer,
he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow,
but also interested in being
interested,
giving attention to attention, aware of being aware.
Affectionate awareness is the crucial
factor
that brings Reality into focus.
Questioner:
According to the Theosophists and allied occultists, man
consists of three aspects: personality,
individuality
and spirituality. Beyond spirituality lies divinity. The
personality is strictly temporary and
valid
for one birth only. It begins with the birth of the body and
ends with the birth of the next body.
Once
over, it is over for good; nothing remains of it except a few
sweet or bitter lessons.
The
individuality begins with the animal-man and ends with the
fully human. The split between the
personality
and individuality is characteristic of our present-day
humanity. On one side the
individuality
with its longing for the true, the good and the beautiful; on
the other side an ugly
struggle
between habit and ambition, fear and greed, passivity and
violence.
The
spirituality aspect is still in abeyance. It cannot manifest
itself in an atmosphere of duality. Only
when
the personality is reunited with the individuality and becomes
a limited, perhaps, but true
expression
of it, that the light and love and beauty of the spiritual
come into their own.
You
teach of the vyakti, vyakta, avyakta (observer, observed and
ground of observation). Does it
tally
with the other view?
Nisargadatta:
Yes, when the vyakti realises its non-existence in separation
from the vyakta, and the vyakta
sees
the vyakti as his own expression, then the peace and silence
of the avyakta state come
into
being. In reality, the three are one: the vyakta and the
avyakta are inseparable, while the
vyakti
is the sensing-feeling-thinking process, based on the body
made of and fed by the
five
elements.
Questioner:
What is the relation between the vyakta and the avyakta?
Nisargadatta:
How can there be relation when they are one? All talk of
separation and relation is due to the
distorting
and corrupting influence of 'I-am-the-body' idea. The outer
self (vyakti) is merely a
projection
on the body-mind of the inner self (vyakta), which again is
only an expression of the
Supreme
Self (avyakta) which is all and none.
Questioner:
There are teachers who will not talk of the higher self and
lower self. They address the man as
if
only the lower self existed. Neither Buddha nor Christ ever
mentioned a higher self. J.
Krishnamurti
too fights shy of any mention of the higher self. Why is it
so?
Nisargadatta:
How can there be two selves in one body? The 'I am' is one.
There is no ‘higher I-am' and ‘lower
I-am'.
All kinds of states of mind are presented to awareness and
there is self-identification with
them.
The objects of observation are not what they appear to be and
the attitudes they are met with
are
not what they need be. If you think that Buddha, Christ or
Krishnamurti speak to the person, you
are
mistaken. They know well that the vyakti, the outer self, is
but a shadow of the vyakta, the inner
self,
and they address and admonish the vyakta only. They tell him
to give attention to the outer
self,
to guide and help it, to feel responsible for it; in short, to
be fully aware of it. Awareness comes
from
the Supreme and pervades the inner self; the so-called outer
self is only that part of one's
being
of which one is not aware. One may be conscious, for every
being is conscious, but one is not
aware.
What is included in awareness becomes the inner and partakes
of the inner. You may put it
differently:
the body defines the outer self, consciousness the inner, and
in pure awareness the
Supreme
is contacted.
Questioner:
You said the body defines the outer self. Since you have a
body, do you have also an outer
self?
Nisargadatta:
I would, were I attached to the body and take it to be myself.
Questioner:
But you are aware of it and attend to its needs.
Nisargadatta:
The contrary is nearer to truth -- the body knows me and is
aware of my needs. But neither is
really
so. This body appears in your mind; in my mind nothing is.
Questioner:
Do you mean to say you are quite unconscious of having a body?
Nisargadatta:
On the contrary, I am conscious of not having a body.
Questioner:
I see you smoking!
Nisargadatta:
Exactly so. You see me smoking. Find out for yourself how did
you come to see me Smoking,
and
you will easily realise that it is your 'I-am-the-body' state
of mind that is responsible for this 'I-
see-you-smoking'
idea.
Questioner:
There is the body and there is myself. I know the body. Apart
from it, what am l?
Nisargadatta:
There is no 'I' apart from the body, nor the world. The three
appear and disappear together. At
the
root is the sense 'I am'. Go beyond it. The idea:
'I-am-not-the-body' is merely an antidote to the
idea
'I-am-the-body' which is false. What is that 'I am’? Unless
you know yourself, what else can you
know?
Questioner:
From what you say I conclude that without the body there can
be no liberation. If the idea: 'I-am-
not-the-body'
leads to liberation, the presence of the body is essential.
Nisargadatta:
Quite right. Without the body, how can the idea:
‘I-am-not-the-body' come into being? The idea
‘I-am-free'
is as false as the idea 'I-am-in-bondage'. Find out the ‘I am'
common to both and go
beyond.
Questioner:
All is a dream only.
Nisargadatta:
All are mere words, of what use are they to you? You are
entangled in the web of verbal
definitions
and formulations. Go beyond your concepts and ideas; in the
silence of desire and
thought
the truth is found.
Questioner:
One has to remember not to remember. What a task!
Nisargadatta:
It cannot be done, of course. It must happen. But it does
happen when you truly see the need of
it.
Again, earnestness is the golden key.
Questioner:
At the back of my mind there is a hum going on all the time.
Numerous weak thoughts swarm
and
buzz and this shapeless cloud is always with me. Is it the
same with you? What is at the back
of
your mind?
Nisargadatta:
Where there is no mind, there is no back to it. I am all
front, no back! The void speaks, the void
remains.
Questioner:
Is there no memory left?
Nisargadatta:
No memory of past pleasure or pain is left. Each moment is
newly born.
Questioner:
Without memory you cannot be conscious.
Nisargadatta:
Of course I am conscious, and fully aware of it. I am not a
block of wood! Compare
consciousness
and its content to a cloud. You are inside the cloud, while I
look at. You are lost in it,
hardly
able to see the tips of your fingers, while I see the cloud
and many other clouds and the blue
sky
too and the sun, the moon, the stars. Reality is one for both
of us, but for you it is a prison and
for
me it is a home.
Questioner:
You spoke of the person (vyakti), the witness (vyakta) and the
Supreme (avyakta). Which
comes
first?
Nisargadatta:
In the Supreme the witness appears. The witness creates the
person and thinks itself as
separate
from it. The witness sees that the person appears in
consciousness which again appears
in
the witness. This realisation of the basic unity is the
working of the Supreme. It is the power
behind
the witness, the source from which all flows. It cannot be
contacted, unless there is unity and
love
and mutual help between the person and the witness, unless the
doing is in harmony with the
being
and the knowing. The Supreme is both the source and the fruit
of such harmony. As I talk to
you,
I am in the state of detached but affectionate awareness
(turiya). When this awareness turns
upon
itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita). But
the fundamental reality is beyond
awareness,
beyond the three states of becoming, being and not-being.
Questioner:
How is it that here my mind is engaged in high topics and
finds dwelling on them easy and
pleasant.
When I return home I find myself forgetting all l have learnt
here, worrying and fretting,
unable
to remember my real nature even for a moment. What may be the
cause?
Nisargadatta:
It is your childishness you are returning to. You are not
fully grown up; there are levels left
undeveloped
because unattended. Just give full attention to what in you is
crude and primitive,
unreasonable
and unkind, altogether childish, and you will ripen. It is the
maturity of heart and mind
that
is essential. It comes effortlessly when the main obstacle is
removed -- inattention,
unawareness.
In awareness you grow.