Kategori: Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: The repetition of the name of God is very common in India. Is there any virtue in it?

M: When you know the name of a thing or a person, you can find it easily. By calling God by His name, you make Him come to you.

Q: In what shape does He come?

M: According to your expectations. If you happen to be unlucky and some saintly soul gives you a mantra for good luck and you repeat it with faith and devotion, your bad luck is bound to turn. Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and is therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.

Q: When a mantra is chanted, what exactly happens?

M: The sound of the mantra creates the shape which will embody the Self. The Self can embody any shape — and operate through it. After all, the Self is expressing itself in action — and a mantra is primarily energy in action. It acts on you, it acts on your surroundings.

Q: The mantra is traditional. Must it be so?

M: Since time immemorial, a link was created between certain words and corresponding energies and reinforced by numberless repetitions. It is just like a road to walk on. It is an easy way — only faith is needed. You trust the road to take you to your destination.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

All bodies are composed of the five elements and they are alive because of consciousness. When consciousness departs from them, there is no longer any life in the bodies. Consciousness does not die, but merely separates from the body. Without consciousness, the bodies were already dead. So who dies now ?

Consciousness serves as an instrument and thanks to it, the Absolute is able to be a witness. Without consciousness, the Absolute cannot witness anything whatsoever.

The Absolute is first a witness to consciousness, when it exists, and then, it is a witness to the continuum of consciousness. If consciousness is called *Brahman*, its witness is *Parabrahman*.

– Nisargadatta Maharaj – To be nothing is to be everything. Excerpt p 135

Q: What makes me limited and superficial?

M: The total is open and available, but you will not take it. You are attached to the little person you think yourself to be. Your desires are narrow, your ambitions — petty. After all, without a center of perception where would be the manifested? Unperceived, the manifested is as good as the unmanifested. And you are the perceiving point, the non-dimensional source of all dimensions. Know yourself as the total.

Q: How can a point contain a universe?

M: There is enough space in a point for an infinity of universes. There is no lack of capacity. Self-limitation is the only problem. But you cannot run away from yourself. However far you go, you come back to yourself and to the need of understanding this point, which is as nothing and yet the source of everything.

– Nisargadatta, I AM THAT ch 70

Vi hittar inte ut från våra tankar. Det är en loop som pågår i all oändlighet. Det är en falsk tro att det på något sätt går att tänka sig ur tankeprocessen. På så sätt går livet vidare mellan glädje och sorg, hopp och lidande.

Now I know there’s no easy ride.

I omedvetenhet är detta det normala. Det är en del av livet.  En dans som tillsynes är slumpartad men som faktiskt leder oss framåt. Genom livskriser och insikter vi får till oss på olika sätt. Föds en längtan efter något mer.

Q: We are like animals, running around in vain pursuits and there seems to be no end to it. Is there a way out?

Nisargadatta: Many ways will be offered to you which will but take you round and bring you back to your starting point.
First realise that your problem exists in your waking state only, that however painful it is, you are able to forget it altogether when you go to sleep.
When you are awake you are conscious; when you are asleep, you are only alive.
Consciousness and life — both you may call God; but you are beyond both, beyond God, beyond being and not-being.
What prevents you from knowing yourself as all and beyond all, is the mind based on memory.
It has power over you as long as you trust it; don’t struggle with it; just disregard it. Deprived of attention, it will slow down and reveal the mechanism of its working. Once you know its nature and purpose, you will not allow it to create imaginary problems.

Q: Surely, not all problems are imaginary.
There are real problems.

Nisargadatta: What problems can there be which the mind did not create?