Nisargadatta Contemplation - The Person Is Not Reality

Listen to Ektaji's meditation on Nisargadatta Contemplation: The person is not Reality from the book 'I am That.' This contemplation is allowing the being devoid of thinking and analysis - simply diving deep into yourself.

Transcript

Let's do a contemplation meditation from Nisargadatta Maharaj's book,

I Am That.

Chapter 12,

The Person is Not Reality.

In contemplation meditation,

We keep the mind aside,

We keep judging and labeling aside.

We let the words sink into the core of our being.

Dive within yourself.

Questioner,

Kindly tell us how you realized.

Maharaj,

I met my guru when I was 34 and realized by 37.

Questioner,

What happened?

What was the change?

Pleasure and pain lost their sway over me.

I was free from desire and fear.

I found myself full,

Needing nothing.

I saw that in the ocean of pure awareness,

On the surface of the universal consciousness,

The numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise and subside,

Beginninglessly and endlessly.

As consciousness,

They are all me.

As events,

They are all mine.

There is a mysterious power that looks after them.

That power is awareness,

Self,

Life,

God,

Whatever name you give it.

It is the foundation,

The ultimate support of all that is.

Just like gold is the basis for all gold jewelry,

And it is so intimately ours.

Abstract the name and shape from the jewelry,

And the gold becomes obvious.

Be free of name and form and of the desires and fears they create,

Then what remains?

Questioner says,

Nothingness.

Maharaj answers,

Yes,

The void remains.

But the void is full to the brim.

It is the eternal potential as consciousness is the eternal actual.

Questioner asks,

By potential you mean the future?

Past,

Present and future,

They are all there and infinitely more.

Questioner says,

But since the void is void,

It is of little use to us.

Maharaj responds,

How can you say so?

Without breach in continuity,

How can there be rebirth?

Can there be renewal without death?

Even without the darkness of sleep,

As is refreshing and rejuvenating death,

We would have been bogged down forever in eternal senility.

Questioner is there no such thing as immortality?

Maharaj responds,

When life and death are seen as essential to each other as two aspects of one being,

That is immortality.

To see the end in the beginning and the beginning in the end is the intimation of eternity.

Definitely,

Immortality is not continuity.

Only the process of change continues.

Nothing lasts.

Definitely,

Immortality is not continuity.

Only the process of change continues.

Nothing lasts.

Questioner says,

Awareness lasts.

Maharaj,

Awareness is not of time.

Time exists in consciousness only.

Beyond consciousness,

Where are time and space?

Questioner says,

Within the field of your consciousness,

There is your body also.

Maharaj answers,

Of course,

But the idea,

My body as different from other bodies is not there.

To me,

It is a body,

Not my body.

A mind,

Not my mind.

The mind looks after the body.

All right,

I need not interfere.

What needs to be done is being done in the normal and natural way.

You may not be quite conscious of your physiological functions,

But when it comes to thoughts and feelings,

Desires and fears,

You become acutely self-conscious.

To me,

These two are largely unconscious.

I find myself talking to people or doing things quite correctly and appropriately without being very much conscious of them.

It looks as if I live my physical waking life automatically,

Reacting spontaneously and accurately.

The idea,

My body as different from other bodies is not there.

To me,

It is a body,

Not my body.

A mind,

Not my mind.

The mind looks after the body.

All right,

I need not interfere.

What needs to be done is being done in the normal,

Natural way.

You may not be quite conscious of your physiological functions,

But when it comes to thoughts,

Feelings,

Desires,

Fears,

You become acutely self-conscious.

To me,

These two are largely unconscious.

I find myself talking to people or doing things quite correctly and appropriately without being very much conscious of them.

It looks as if I live my physical waking life automatically,

Reacting spontaneously and accurately.

Does this spontaneous response come as a result of realization or by training?

Maharaj responds,

Both.

Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life,

Giving to search for truth and to helping people.

And realization makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous by removing for good the obstacles in the shape of desires,

Fears and wrong ideas.

Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life,

Giving to search for truth and to helping people.

And realization makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous by removing for good the obstacles in the shape of desires,

Fears and wrong ideas.

Questioner asks,

Don't you have desires and fears anymore?

Maharaj responds,

My destiny was to be born a simple man.

A commoner,

A humble tradesman with little formal education.

My life was of the common kind,

With common desires and fears.

When through my faith in my teacher and obedience to his words,

I realized my true being,

I left my human nature to look after itself until its destiny is exhausted.

Occasionally,

An old reaction,

Emotional or mental,

Happens in the mind,

But it is at once noticed and discarded.

After all,

As long as one is burdened with a person,

One is exposed to its idiosyncrasies and habits.

Questioner asks,

Are you not afraid of death?

Maharaj responds,

I am dead already.

Questioner asks,

In what sense?

Maharaj responds,

I am double dead.

Not only am I dead to my body,

But to my mind too.

Well,

You do not look dead at all.

That's what you say.

You seem to know my state better than I do.

Sorry,

But I just do not understand.

You say you are bodiless and mindless,

While I see you very much alive and articulate.

Maharaj responds,

A tremendously complex work is going on all the time in your brain and body.

Are you conscious of it?

Not at all.

Yet for an outsider,

All seems to be going on intelligently and purposefully.

Why not admit that one's entire personal life may sink largely below the threshold of consciousness and yet proceed sanely and smoothly?

Why not admit that one's entire personal life may sink largely below the threshold of consciousness and yet proceed sanely and smoothly?

Questioner asks,

Is it normal?

Maharaj responds,

What is normal?

Is your life obsessed by desires,

Fears,

Full of strife,

Struggle,

Meaningless and joyless,

Normal?

Is your life obsessed by desires and fears,

Full of strife and struggle,

Meaningless and joyless,

Normal?

To be acutely conscious of your body,

Is it normal?

A healthy body,

A healthy mind live largely unperceived by their owner.

Simply occasionally,

Through pain or suffering,

They call for attention and insight.

Why not extend the same to the entire personal life?

Why not extend the same to the entire personal life?

Why not extend the same to the entire personal life?

One can function rightly,

Responding well and fully to whatever happens without having to bring it into the focus of awareness.

When self-control becomes second nature,

Awareness shifts its focus to deeper levels of existence and action.

One can function rightly,

Responding well and fully to whatever happens without having to bring it into the focus of awareness.

When self-control becomes second nature,

Awareness shifts its focus to deeper levels of existence and action.

Questioner asks,

Don't you become a robot?

Maharaj responds.

What harm is there in making automatic?

What is habitual and repetitive?

It is automatic anyhow.

What harm is there in making automatic?

What is habitual and repetitive?

It is automatic anyhow.

But when it is also chaotic,

It causes pain and suffering and calls for attention.

The entire purpose of a clean and well ordered life is to liberate man from the thraldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow.

The questioner says,

You seem to be in favour of a computerised life.

Maharaj responds,

What is wrong with a life which is free from problems?

Personality is merely a reflection of the real.

Why should not the reflection be true to the original as a matter of cause automatically?

Personality is merely a reflection of the real.

Why should not the reflection be true to the original as a matter of cause automatically?

Need the person have any designs of its own?

Once you realise that the person is merely a shadow of the reality but not really itself,

You cease to fret and worry.

Once you realise that the person is merely a shadow of the reality but not really itself,

You cease to fret and worry.

You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.

You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.

You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.