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I AM That (39) > Ron > 08/13/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, August 13, 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!
Did you formulate a resolution (sankalpa)?
Let’s consider the usefulness of this practice (sadhana).
In reading, consider…
What did I hear?
What do I understand?
What is my experience?
Peace Peace Peace
I Am That
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Chapters 39-40
Chapter 39
By Itself Nothing Has Existence
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 no thing has existence].
176
Q: If the unconditioned cannot be experienced,
for all experience is conditioned,
then why talk of it at all?
NM: 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.
A very useful concept all the same!
NM: 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
Chapter 40
Only the Self is Real
Q: What is the nature of the world?
NM: The world is but a show, glittering and empty.
It is, and yet it is not.
It is there as long as I want to see it and take part in it.
When I cease caring, it dissolves.
It has no cause and serves no purpose…
there is no depth in it, nor meaning.
178
Q: Then is there anything real?
NM: Only the onlooker is real, call him [It/That] Self or Atman.
To the Self, the world is but a colorful show,
which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over…
Without desire or fear he enjoys it, as it happens.
178-179
Q: The person immersed in the world has a life of many flavors.
He weeps, he laughs, loves and hates,
desires and fears, suffers and rejoices.
The desire-less and fearless jnani, what life has he?
Is he not left high and dry in his aloofness?
NM: His state is not so desolate.
It tastes of the pure,
uncaused,
undiluted bliss.
He is happy and fully aware that happiness is his very nature
and that he need not do anything,
nor strive for anything to secure it.
It follows him, more real than the body,
nearer than the mind itself.
You imagine that without cause there can be no happiness.
To me dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery.
Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own,
totally uncaused,independent, unassailable.
179
Q: Like a play on the stage?
NM: The play was written, planned and rehearsed.
The world just sprouts into being
out of nothing and returns to nothing.
179
Q: You seem to function like the rest of us?
NM: Joy and sorrow, life and death,
they are all real to the man in bondage;
to me they are all in the show,
as unreal as the show itself…
I may perceive the world just like you,
but you believe [yourself] to be in it,
while I see it as an iridescent drop
in the vast expanse of consciousness.
179
Q: How does a jnani feel as an old man?
NM: As he gets older he grows
more and more happy and peaceful.
After all, he is going home.
Like a traveller nearing his destination
and collecting his luggage,
he leaves the train without regret.
180
Q: The jnani may be detached
from his own suffering,
but still it is there?
NM: It is there, but it does not matter.
Whatever state I am in,
I see it as a state of mind
to be accepted as it is…
He who experiences the body,
experiences its pains and pleasures.
I am neither the body,
nor the experiencer of the body.
180
Q: Pain is pain.
You experience it all the same…
How would you feel?
NM: Just as I feel now.
You keep insisting my inner state
is molded by outer events.
It is just not so.
Whatever happens, I remain.
At the root of my being is pure awareness,
a speck of intense light.
This speck, by its very nature,
radiates and creates pictures
in space and events in time –
effortlessly and spontaneously.
As long as it is merely aware there are no problems.
But when the discriminative mind comes into being
and creates distinctions, pleasure and pain arise…
The mind is a form of consciousness,
and consciousness is an aspect of life.
Life creates everything,
but the Supreme Is beyond all.
180-181
Q: Are you not afraid to die?
NM: Everybody dies as they live.
I am not afraid of death,
because I am not afraid of life.
I live a happy life
and I shall die a happy death.
Misery is to be born, not to die.
All depends [on] how you look at it.
181
Q: Even as a dream you are a most unusual dream.
NM: I am a dream that can wake you up.
You will have the proof of it in your very waking up.
181
Q: Imagine, news reaches you that I have died.
Somebody tells you:
‘You know so-and-so? He died.’
What would be your reaction?
NM: I would be very happy to have you back home.
Really glad to see you out of this foolishness.
181-182
Q: Which foolishness?
NM: Of thinking that you were born and will die,
that you are a body displaying a mind and all such nonsense.
In my world nobody is born and nobody dies.
Some people go on a journey and come back, some never leave.
What difference does it make since they travel in dreamlands,
each wrapped up in their own dream.
Only the waking up is important.
It is enough to know the ’I am’ as reality and also love.
182
Q: Most of the people in the world
just do not know that there is a reality
which can be found and experienced
in consciousness.
It seems very important that they
should hear the good news from somebody
who has actually experienced [it].
Such witnesses have always existed
and their testimony is precious.
NM: Of course.
The gospel of self-realization,
once heard,
will never be forgotten.
182
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
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Created: August 12, 2023
Last modified: August 12, 2023
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