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I AM That (39) > Ron > 08/06/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, August 6, 2023 3:45 pm (California Time)
We are a small group of friends;
together we read some paragraphs in
Nisargadatta‘s I AM THAT
and then talk about it.
Feel warmly welcome
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
Greetings to One and All!
We’ll start from the beginning of chapter 39.
Below is a format which is maybe a little bit
more time consuming so let me know if you find it useful.
[this style of brackets means it is coming from ‘me’
and the italicized words are also coming from ‘me’,
unless they are Sanskrit terms].
Looking forward to hearing and sharing your understanding
and experiences with the Teaching during the week.
Peace Peace Peace
I Am That
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Chapter 39
By Itself Nothing Has Existence
Q: Words merely add to the confusion
and the only wise course is the silent search within.
NM: After all, it is the mind that creates illusion
and it is the mind that gets free of it.
Words may aggravate illusion, words may also help dispel it…
People need hearing words,
until facts speak to them louder than words.
174
Q: So we are children to be fed on words?
Q: As long as you give importance to words, you are children.
174
Q: Your answer is always the same.
A kind of clockwork
which strikes the same hours again and again?
NM: It cannot be helped.
Just like the one sun is reflected in a billion dew drops,
so is the timeless endlessly repeated…
You get tired of my words because you do
not see [experience] the living truth behind them.
Contact it and you will find the full meaning
of words and of silence – both.
174-175
Q: The mind is consciousness in motion and
consciousness is the conditioned (saguna) aspect of the Self.
The unconditioned (nirguna) is another aspect
and beyond lies the abyss of the absolute (paramartha)?
NM: Quite right – you have put it beautifully.
175
Q: But these are mere words to me.
Hearing and repeating them is not enough,
they must be experienced.
NM: Nothing stops you but preoccupation with the outer
which prevents you from focusing on the inner.
It cannot be helped,
you cannot skip your sadhana [spiritual practice].
You have to turn away from the world and go within,
until the inner and the outer merge
and you can go beyond the conditioned,
whether inner or outer.
175
Q: Consciousness itself is a reflection.
How can it hold the real?
Q: To know that consciousness and its content
are but reflections, changeful and transient,
is the focusing of the real.
The refusal to see the snake in the rope
is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.
175
Q: Only necessary, or also sufficient?
NM: One must also know that a rope exists and looks like a snake.
Similarly, one must know that the real exists
and is of the nature of witness-consciousness.
Of course it is beyond the witness, but to enter it
one must first realize the state of pure witnessing.
The awareness of conditions brings one to the unconditioned.
176
Q: Can we talk of witnessing the real?
NM: How can we?
We can talk only of the unreal,
the illusory,
the transient,
the conditioned.
To go beyond,
we must pass through total negation of everything
as having independent existence.
All things depend.
[By itself nothing has existence].
176
Q: If the unconditioned cannot be experienced,
for all experience is conditioned,
then why talk of it at all?
Q: How can there be knowledge of the conditioned
without the unconditioned?
There must be a source from which all this flows,
a foundation on which all stands.
Self-realization is primarily
the knowledge of one’s conditioning.
176-177
Q: What is the purpose of pain and pleasure?
NM: Pain and pleasure are merely symptoms,
the result of wrong knowledge and wrong feeling.
A result cannot have a purpose of its own.
177
Q: God may be a mere concept, a working theory.
NM: A very useful concept all the same!
For this it must be free of inner contradictions,
which is not the case.
Why not work on the theory
that you are your own creation and creator.
At least there will be no external God
to battle with.
178
Q: The world is so rich and complex –
how could I create it?
NM: Do you know yourself enough to know what you can do
and what you cannot?
You do not know your own powers.
You never investigated.
Begin with yourself now.
178
Q: Everybody believes in God.
NM: To me you are your own God.
But if you think otherwise, think to the end.
If there be God, then all is God’s
and all is for the best.
Welcome all that comes
with a glad and thankful heart,
and love all creatures.
This too will take you to your Self.
178
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
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by Vyacheslav Argenberg is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
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Created: August 5, 2023
Last modified: August 5, 2023
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