THE IDEA OF ENLIGHTENMENT is of the utmost importance. Just to know there is such a possibility changes one's entire outlook. It acts like a burning match in a heap of saw dust. All the great teachers did nothing else. A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies. The opposite is also true. The sun of truth remains hidden behind the cloud of self-identification with the body.
Just as a speck in the eye by causing inflammation may wipe out the world, so the mistaken idea, "I am the body-mind," causes self-concern which obscures the universe. It is useless to fight the sense of being a limited and separate person unless the roots of it are laid bare. Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas of oneself.
In the depths there is perfect peace. All your problems arise because you have defined and therefore limited yourself. You have enclosed yourself in time and space, squeezed yourself into the span of a lifetime and the volume of a body and thus created the innumerable conflicts of life and death, pleasure and pain, hope and fear. You cannot be rid of problems without abandoning illusions.
And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up — like from a bad dream.
A general longing for liberation is only the beginning; to find the proper means and use them is the next step. The seeker has only one goal in view: to find his own True Being. Of all desires it is the most ambitious. Be devoted to your goal, and devotion to him who can guide you will follow. If your desire and confidence are strong, they will operate and take you to your goal, for you will not cause delay by hesitation and compromise. The innermost light, shining peacefully and timelessly in the heart, is the real Guru. Truly, he is the supreme teacher. He alone can take you to your goal, and he alone meets you at the end of the road. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly.
Yoga is the science and art of self-liberation through self-understanding. The problem is universal — suffering and the ending of suffering. The same urge that seeks birth, happiness and death shall seek understanding and liberation. It is like a spark of fire in a cargo of cotton. You may not know about it, but sooner or later the ship will burst into flames. Liberation is a natural process and in the long run, inevitable. But it is within your power to bring it into the now. All desire has its source in the self. It is all a matter of choosing the right desire.
What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through understanding. Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap. Realize once and for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself, and stand alone in your True Nature beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding. Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all. Relax and watch the "I am." Reality is just behind it.
This is the heart of the problem. Either you are body-conscious and a slave of circumstances, or you are the Universal Consciousness itself — and in full control of every event. Realize that whatever there is true, noble and beautiful in the universe it all comes from you; you yourself are at the source of it. Be aware that whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive, and you will not be afraid.
You are what you are timelessly, but of what use is it to you unless you know it and act on it? Your begging bowl may be of pure gold, but as long as you do not know it, you are a pauper. You must know your inner worth and trust it.
We believe in so many things on hearsay. We believe in distant lands and people, in heavens and hells, in gods and goddesses, because we were told. Similarly, we were told about ourselves, our parents, name, position, duties and so on. We never cared to verify. The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world — God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts — fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems — all to protect and support the child-man frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realize that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone all suffering ends.
The mind must have a purpose. To encourage it to free itself from the unreal it is promised something in return. In reality, there is no need of purpose. Being free from the false is good in itself, it wants no reward. It is just like being clean — which is its own reward.
The reward of Self Knowledge is freedom from the personal self.
Once you say, "I want to find Truth," all your life will be deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a most radical transformation. If you are earnest, whatever way you choose will take you to your goal. It is the earnestness that is the decisive factor. Earnestness is the homing instinct which makes the bird return to its nest and the fish to the mountain stream where it was born. The seed returns to the earth when the fruit is ripe.
You are the infinite potentiality; the inexhaustible possibility. Because you are, all can be. The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become. The world has no existence apart from you. At every moment it is but a reflection of yourself. You create it, you destroy it. Of the entire universe you are the subtle cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To realize this as absolutely true is liberation.
You must give yourself time to brood over these things. The old grooves must be erased in your brain without forming new ones. You must realize yourself as the immovable behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens. Find out your real being. "What am I?" is the fundamental question of all philosophy and psychology. Go into it deeply.
Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call Nisarga Yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless. Turn within and you will come to trust yourself. As in everything else, confidence comes with experience.
Self Realization is not an acquisition. It is more of the nature of understanding. Once arrived at, it cannot be lost. The permanent is beyond all comings and goings. Go to the root of all experience, to the sense of being. Beyond being and non-being lies the immensity of the Real.
The end is in the beginning. You end where you start — in the Absolute. The universe is perfect as a whole, and the parts striving for perfection is a way of joy.
Nisargadatta Maharaj - Excerpts from I AM THAT
PDF Book - Nisarga Yoga - Compiled from I AM THAT - compiled by Stephen Wingate
