I Am That - Session 80 - The Beginningless Begins Forever -3

Listen to Ektaji talk about Nisargadatta Maharaj's book I Am That. Nisargadatta Maharaj was a teacher who did not propound any ideology or religion, but gently unwrapped the mystery of the self. I Am That preserves his dialogs with the followers who came from around the world seeking guidance in destroying false identities.

Transcript

So he says,

I have the courage to be nothing and to see the world as it is,

Nothing.

Do you have the courage?

Question asked,

What gives you courage?

Maharaj says,

How perverted are your views?

Do you need courage to be given?

Your question implies that anxiety is the normal state and courage is abnormal.

It is the other way round.

Anxiety and hope are of imagination.

Means you imagine hope,

You imagine anxiety,

Do you get it?

He is saying they are not real,

You imagine that you are anxious.

So everything,

Depression,

Anxiety,

All these things that you think you are going through,

They are only imagined.

That is abnormal.

What is normal?

Being courageous,

That is very normal.

I am free of both,

I am a simple being and I need nothing to rest on.

That is not the questioner,

It's Maharaj,

He continues talking.

It's not a question.

If you see,

I'll read it out,

You'll recognize it.

Unless you know yourself of what is your being to you,

Be happy with what you are.

You must know what you are.

It's Maharaj,

Maharaj is talking continuously.

Being shines as knowing.

Knowing is warm in love.

It is all one.

You imagine separations and trouble yourself with questions.

Don't concern yourself over much with formulations.

Pure being cannot be described.

Being shines as knowing.

Primordial awareness shines as witness consciousness.

Witness consciousness knows its objects.

Being shines as knowing.

Maharaj,

Knowing is complete with love.

That is the correct translation.

Knowing is complete with love.

It is all one.

Being is knowing,

Knowing is being.

It is all one.

You are the one who's imagining separations and you're troubling yourself with questions.

Don't concern yourself over much with formulations.

Pure being cannot be described.

Is this clear?

Using primordial awareness,

This oneness,

This pure being,

Pure consciousness,

It cannot be described.

Don't get trapped in words.

Get away from logic,

Get away from analysis,

Get away from words.

Don't get into all these formulations.

Just recognize being and knowing are one and the same.

You imagine separations and trouble yourself with questions.

Don't concern yourself over much with formulations.

Pure being cannot be described.

Don't get too much into just scriptural recitation and don't get lost in the scriptural words.

Pure being cannot be described.

Unless a thing is noble and enjoyable,

It is of no use to me.

It must become a part of my experience first of all.

He's a hardcore bhogi.

Maharaj,

You are dragging down reality to the level of experience.

How can reality depend on experience?

When it is the very ground,

Aadhaar,

Of experience.

Reality is the very fact of experience,

Not in its nature.

Tell me how?

Correct,

Reality is the background on which experience happens.

Experience is nothing but witness consciousness itself taking the form of that perception,

Sensation,

Thought and feeling.

On what does it arise and fall?

The primordial awareness,

The naam,

The nothingness.

That is the reality.

Reality is in the very fact of experience,

Not in its nature means?

Is a perception,

Sensation,

Thought or feeling reality?

That is the illusion.

So its nature is illusory,

Its nature is not reality.

The background on which the illusion arises and disappears into,

That is reality.

Experience is after all a state of mind.

Why?

Being is definitely not a state of mind.

Clear?

I don't need to explain this.

Questioner,

Again I am confused.

Is being separate from knowing?

Maharaj says the separation is an appearance.

Just as the dream is not apart from the dreamer,

So is knowing not apart from being.

The dream is the dreamer,

The knowledge is the knower.

The distinction is merely verbal.

The knowledge is the knower.

Being and knowing are not separate.

Questioner says,

I can see now that sat and chit are one.

But what about ananda,

What about bliss?

Being and consciousness are always present together.

But bliss flashes only occasionally.

Maharaj says the undisturbed state of being is bliss.

The disturbed state is what appears as the world.

Please highlight.

So in your direct experience,

What is the disturbed state?

Perception,

Sensations,

Thoughts,

Feelings are disturbance.

That is the disturbed state of the mind.

So waking and dream are disturbance.

Next is the undisturbed state of being is bliss.

Which is that?

What did we do about deep sleep today?

There is still a vritti.

It is closest to your nature,

But you still cannot call it bliss.

It is closest to your nature.

In some scriptures,

For people who are not up there,

They will still say okay,

Deep sleep,

Your nature.

It's the closest,

The closest.

But if it were my real nature,

Then there wouldn't be a turiya.

There is a turiya,

Which means the third is not me.

The deep sleeper is not me.

The pragya is not me.

So which one is the undisturbed state of the being?

The primordial of it.

Turiyatita In non-duality,

There is bliss.

In duality,

Experience.

What comes and goes is experience with its duality of pain and pleasure.

Bliss is not to be known.

One is always bliss,

But never blissful.

Highlight.

You try to want to experience bliss.

Do you get it?

Can bliss be an experience?

No.

You are bliss.

So now you stop looking for ananda.

He is looking for ananda.

He is seeking for ananda.

So one is always bliss,

But never blissful.

Bliss is not an attribute.

So questioner says,

I have another question to ask.

Some yogis attain their goal,

But it is of no use to others.

They do not know or are not able to share.

Those who can share what they have,

Initiate others.

Where lies the difference?

Maharaj says there is no difference.

Your approach is wrong.

There are no others to help.

Please highlight.

Karma yoga goes out the window now.

So any karma yogis?

Your second heartbreak today.

There are no others to help.

A rich man,

When he hands over his entire fortune to his family,

He has not a coin left to give a beggar.

So is the wise man,

Jnani,

Stripped of all his powers and possessions.

Nothing,

Literally nothing can be said about him.

He cannot help anybody.

For he is everybody.

Please highlight.

He is all.

He is everybody.

He has attained that oneness.

There is no question of the other.

So there is nobody to help.

He is the poor and also his poverty.

The thief and also his thievery.

How can he be said to help when he is not a part?

Who thinks of himself as separate from the world?

Let him help the world.

Very clear?

If you are out to be a karma yogi,

There is duality.

If you are out to do seva,

Seva,

Seva,

You believe in duality.

Till the time you believe in duality,

You can do your seva and help the world.

But there is no other,

No?

Who are you going to help?

Right hand never says,

I am helping the left hand.

There is no help.

It is all one.

Isn't it a part of me?

It is me.

Not part of me.

It is me.

Who are you to help?

Who do you think you are?

See,

There is an ego in,

I want to help.

I want to do seva.

I want to put a smile on a million faces.

Do you see your big eye there?

Now you recognize.

Now you see the truth.

The big eye is there.

I am helping you.

I.

Manas says,

Who are you?

The so-called enlightened one who says that I am helping you.

I am doing seva.

I am putting a million smiles on a million faces.

Who are you?

So much I,

I,

I,

I,

I.

I am running the world.

Do you see the I there?

Can he be called supreme reality?

Has he attained the highest?

Is it full enlightenment?

So enlightened being will do.

It's coming in the next paragraph.

Who thinks of himself as separate from the world?

Let him help the world.

So it is that person who says I,

I,

I thinks you need my help.

You are separate from me.

That is why I need to help you.

There is duality.

Clear?

Questioner says still there is duality.

There is sorrow.

There is need of help.

By denouncing it as mere dream,

Nothing is achieved.

Maharaj says the only thing that can help is to wake up from the dream.

That is all.

The only help required is to wake up from the dream.

There is no other seva that you can really do.

The questioner says by denouncing it as mere dream,

Nothing is achieved.

Maharaj says the only thing that can help is to wake up from the dream.

Questioner says an awakener is required.

He is very smart.

Very,

Very,

Very smart.

So Maharaj says that awakener is again in the dream.

That is the key here.

Where is that awakener?

In the dream.

So where are you going to be stuck?

In the dream.

Where do you want to go?

Yes.

You want to go to reality.

You don't want to be in the dream,

Right?

If you look for an awakener in the dream,

You will be stuck in the dream.

That is why I tell you,

I am not your guru.

Where is your guru?

Within.

It is inside.

Your inner guru,

If you follow,

It will take you to supreme reality.

If you follow ekta,

Where will you be stuck?

In the waking dream.

You will always be stuck here if you get attached to somebody who is in the waking dream.

Is that clear?

Now do you know why you have to discard your photographs of gurus and gods and idols?

Because where are they?

In the waking dream.

Devotion comes after you reach paramakash,

Not at the beginning level.

Beginning level is entertainment.

The full sentence is in the Marathi book.

In English,

It was half eaten.

That's why I said it the way it is in the Marathi.

If you awaken,

You will be in the waking dream.

You just needed a form through which the voice spoke to you and brought this wisdom.

Recognize that.

Do not get attached to ekta.

Do not get attached to any form.

Why?

Because it is in this waking dream.

The waking itself is a dream.

So do not get attached to any form here because you will be stuck here.

You will never be able to go to Turiya and Turiyatita.

Is that very clear?

I am just like a torch.

My job is to light your path.

When I am lighting the path,

What is your job to do?

Look at the path,

Not look at me.

You miss the path.

Is that clear?

But what happens in most of the spiritual shops?

Are they looking at the path?

No,

The focus is on the Guru.

That's where they get lost.

Same thing happens in the worship homes.

The focus is on the idol,

On the book,

On the scripture.

Not on the path,

Not on the wisdom.

Nobody is following the wisdom.

Is this very clear?

So be wary of this.

If ever this attachment comes up,

No attachment to any form in this waking world.

Clear?

My inner Guru will take me there.

That light will lead me.

The awakener is again in the dream.

The awakener signifies the beginning of the end.

What?

My job is to just put one matchstick there.

It's going to catch fire.

My job is to just throw a spark in.

Your whole house made of cotton is going to burn down.

It has to burn down eventually.

Yes?

All your desires,

All your temptations,

All your desires,

Your fears,

Everything will burn down.

I am this,

I am that will burn down.

All your perceptions,

Sensations,

Thoughts,

Feelings,

Everything will burn down.

Everything.

It has to burn down.

One spark that is sent your way.

That's all that the awakener does.

It's the beginning of the end.

Is this clear?

There are no eternal dreams.

Eternal dreams.

Why is he saying?

Because your awakener is where?

In this waking dream.

Do you see your awakener here?

Yeah?

But she's not eternal because this dream is not eternal.

Is this clear now?

So no attachment to the awakener.

Awakener is doing her job.

She's throwing in the spark.

Everything is going to end.

Question now.

Even when it is beginningless,

Maharaj says,

Everything begins with you.

Please highlight.

What is beginningless?

From the deep sleep,

Darkness,

The I arises.

So everything begins with?

From there comes the dream.

From dream comes the waking.

So you have to recognize this first in your Swapna Nidra Gnan Sadhana.

Then all this will become very clear.

Otherwise,

It's only theory for you if you don't see it.

So those who have not seen it,

Task for you.

Tonight in my Swapna Nidra Gnan Sadhana,

May I recognize that the I arises from the darkness of deep sleep.

It stands alone.

First it knows that there is nothing.

It does not like the idea there is nothing.

It quivers,

It shakes.

It's seeking validation for its existence.

It wants to experience and there comes a dream.

Whatever thought,

Feeling,

Sensation,

Perception of sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch,

Whatever.

Some of these,

Few of these,

One of these.

Anything it comes up,

The I attaches,

There is Tadatma.

That is the dreamer becoming one with the dream world.

Where was this dream born from?

I.

Where was this I born?

From that primordial awareness,

Nothingness,

Consciousness,

Which is me only.

Me only.

It is me only.

So what is that sentence?

Everything begins with you.

Clear?

See that you take this up as one soft intention before the body lies down tonight.

May I see this.

May I see everything begins with me.

Everything begins with you.

What is beginningless?

Questioner says I began at birth.

Maharaj says that is what you are told.

Is it so?

Is it so means?

Is it so in your direct seeing?

Yeah.

Did you see yourself beginning?

Questioner says I began just now.

All else is memory.

All else is memory.

See he gets it so quickly.

I began just now.

All else is memory.

Maharaj says quite right.

The beginningless begins forever.

Please highlight.

This is where the chapter gets its name.

Explain.

Do you see this?

Beginningless begins forever.

Those who have gone deeper into their seeing,

Can you see along with the arising the I is.

The I is on this side and the arising is on this side.

The two sides of the same coin.

I and the perception of sight.

Or I and the perception of taste.

Or I and the thought.

Two sides of the same coin.

So I arises every now.

Very clear?

That is the meaning of the beginningless begins forever.

In the same way,

I give eternally because I have nothing.

So contradictory no?

I give eternally because I have nothing.

To be nothing,

To have nothing,

To keep nothing for oneself.

Is the greatest gift,

The highest generosity.

Questioner.

Is there no self-concern left?

Maharaj,

Of course I am self-concerned.

But the self is all.

In practice,

It takes the shape of goodwill,

Unfailing and universal.

You may call it love,

All-pervading,

All-redeeming.

Such love is supremely active without the sense of doing.

This is that highest level of seva.

The supremely active love without the sense of doing.

At the level of the Karma Yogi,

How is this level?

At the level of the Karma Yogi,

How is the seva?

I am doing this,

I am doing that.

See,

I have so much.

I have a big seva organization.

I have hundreds of people with me doing so much.

I,

I,

I.

And here?

Supreme love without the sense of doing.

Unconditional.

Because there is no other to help.

There is no other to help.

It is all me.

Clear?

Chapter is very clear?

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