RameshS.

Balsekar
Experiencing
TheTeaching
 What does "awakening", in the final analysis, ac-
tually mean?
"Awakening" means that total disappearance of all
phenomenal problems, resulting in a perpetual feeling
of total freedom from all worries. It is a feeling of light-
ness, of floating in the air, untouched by the impurity
- and confusion - of the split mind. It is as if the very

root of all problems has been demolished, as if the

Hydra has been fatally pierced in the heart to prevent
the heads from growing again and again.
CHAPTER 5
*******

(Seekers) don't realize that all methods and tech-

niques are utterly useless unless they give up the illu-
sion that they themselves are autonomous entities,
with volition and choice, working towards a goal.
CHAPTER 9
*******

There is no practicer and nothing to practice - no

seeker and nothing to seek. Deep apprehension of this
is illumination.
CHAPTER 20
*******

...the presence of a seeker entity inevitably prevents

enlightenment - there is no difference between ig-
norance and enlightenment as long as there is a con-
ceptual entity to experience either condition.
CHAPTER 20
 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, re-
cording, or by any information storage and retreival system without written per-
mission from the author or his agents, except for the inclusion of brief
quotations in a review.

Copyright © 1988 by

Ramesh S. Balsekar

First Published in United States Of America by

ADVAITA PRESS
P.O. Box 3479

Redondo Beach, California 90277

CO
o
Designed by: Wayne Liquorman

Cover Art: Rifka Hirsch

Cover Design: Arthur J. Hendrickson

C3

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-71633

ISBN 0-929448-07-3
EXPERIENCING
THE
TEACHING
by
RAMESH S. BALSEKAR

ADVAITA PRESS
-LOS ANGELES-
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012

http://archive.org/details/experiencingteacOOrame
 Contents

PREFACE .vii

INTRODUCTION ix

CHAPTER 1 SOME BASIC FACETS

OF THE TEACHING 14

CHAPTER 2 THE DO-ER 26

CHAPTER 3 THINKING-A PERNICIOUS HABIT .... 29

CHAPTER 4 ENLIGHTENMENT - LIBERATION -

REALIZATION 34

CHAPTER 5 DREAMING AND AWAKENING 43

CHAPTER 6 "REBIRTH" CONSIDERED 49

CHAPTER 7 THE INHERENT IDENTITY 53

CHAPTER 8 THE WHOLE TROUBLE 59

CHAPTER 9 WHO WHERE WHEN?

- - 61

CHAPTER 10 WHAT HE THINKS OF ME 65

CHAPTER 11 WHO IS THE PERCEIVER

WHO PERCEIVES? 70

CHAPTER 12 TRUE PERCEIVING 74

CHAPTER 13 THE ESSENCE OF UNDERSTANDING 78

CHAPTER 14 IDENTIFICATION AND

DISIDENTIHCATION 83
CHAPTER 15 THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM 87

CHAPTER 16 REVERSING INTO THE FUTURE 90

CHAPTER 17 I AM THE PAIN 95

CHAPTER 18 VOLITIONAL EFFORT 99

CHAPTER 19 WHAT WE ARE 105

CHAPTER 20 "BONDAGE AND FREEDOM 7

' -

SIMPLIFIED 108

CHAPTER21 SPEAKINGOFGOD 116

CHAPTER 22 OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS

SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE 121

CHAPTER 23 UNEXTENDED, YOU ARE HOME 130

CHAPTER 24 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 133

GLOSSARY 137
 .

PREFACE

Nisargadatta Maharaj had an apparently hearty dislike

of professional writers on metaphysics. This was probably
based on the well-established premise that those who know
do not speak and those who speak do not know. Maharaj
himself spoke from experience and repeatedly reminded his
listeners of the utter futility of listening to him as one in-
dividual entity to another. He said that when he spoke, it
was consciousness speaking to consciousness.
Soon after the writing for Pointers From Nisargadatta
Maharaj began to appear spontaneously, when this fact was
conveyed to Maharaj, he seemed not to have been surprised.
He said that such inspired writing was called prasadic, which
could be loosely translated as "a gift from nature or nisarga"
It is essential to understand that this gift is not made for the

benefit of the nominal author but as a gift to those who were

in need of it. Such spontaneous writing has continued
through Experience of Immortality and Explorations Into The
Eternal and now Experiencing The Teaching. It would almost
,

seem that the circle is now complete with this fourth seg-
ment. My friend Soumitra Mullarpattan had once expressed
to me, after the second book was published, his hope that a

Ramesh S. Balsekar, Pointers From Nisargadatta

Maharaj (Bombay: Chetana, 1982)
Ramesh S. Balsekar, Experience Of Immortality
(Bombay: Chetana, 1984)
Ramesh S. Balsekar, Explorations Into The Eternal
(Bombay: Chetana, 1987)
viii EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

book would emerge that was based on my own experience

of the deeper aspects of Maharaj's Teaching. It would seem
that this brief volume is the objectification of that hope.
The essential point in Maharafs dislike of professional
writing on metaphysics was that such writing would be con-
ditioned and limited by the dialectical approach, requiring
proof of experiment by anybody at any time. Such an author
would be writing on metaphysical matters necessarily from
the viewpoint of a bound, identified and supposedly auton-
omous entity, one who has apparently fully accepted the no-
tion that he is what he appears to be. He would be writing
from the viewpoint of an Arjuna and not from that of a Lord
Krishna. Such writing from a position of ignorance would
not bear the stamp of authority, but could quite easily, be-
cause of the relativity of language, seriously mislead the fel-
low-prisoners. Any expression from behind prison bars can
only further delude the already deluded, the delusion being
that there are bars and that there is some one behind them.
I have already said elsewhere that there is writing but no

author. Perhaps I should add that it is when the reader feels

there is reading but no reader, that writing and reading
would merge to produce apperception of the kind that never
needs a comprehender.
 INTRODUCTION
Before dealing with the question of what precisely Ex-
periencing The Teaching is meant to convey, it would be nec-
essary to have an overview of the basics of Nisargadatta
Maharaj' s Teaching. This may give the reader a clearer idea
of the gateless gate at the end of the conceptual pathless
path. In order to do this we shall, at this juncture, ignore the
side-roads, the by-lanes, and foot-ways and just stick to the
highway, though it is necessary to explore the various routes
branching off the main road in order to know the whole area
thoroughly. Such a study in depth of various aspects of the
essence of the Nisargadatta Teaching is provided by the con-
tents of the book itself.
In this introduction let us make an effort to enumerate
the precise basics of the Teaching. Perhaps the most attrac-
tive feature of the presentation of the Teaching, particularly
for the westerners, was the fact that Maharaj scrupulously
avoided the use of the spiritual jargon, and indeed rarely re-
ferred to the scriptures. He limited his talks to the seeker, the
seeker's relationship with other sentient beings, the phe-
nomenal manifestation and its source (Noumenon).
(1) Noumenon - pure subjectivity - is not aware of its ex-
istence. Such awareness of its existence comes about only
with the arising of consciousness - 1 am. This spontaneous
arising of consciousness (because that is its nature, as
Maharaj said), brings about the sense of presence, of exist-
ence. Simultaneously, it causes the arising of the phenome-
nal manifestation in consciousness, together with a sense of
duality. The Wholeness gets split into the duality of a
(pseudo) subject and observed object - each phenomenal ob-
ject assumes subjectivity as a "me" concerning all other ob-
 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

The objectivization of this duality requires

jects as "others".
the creation of the twin concepts of "space" and "time":
"space" in which the volume of objects could be extended,
and "time" in which the phenomenal images extended in
space could be perceived, cognized and measured in terms
of the duration of existence.
(2) The human beings and all other sentient beings are
as much an integral part of the total phenomenal manifesta-
tion as any other phenomena. They arise with the arising of
the phenomenal universe. As objective phenomena, there is
no apparent difference between animate and inanimate ob-
jects. But subjectively, it is sentience which is responsible for

enabling the sentient beings to perceive. Sentience, as such,

is an aspect of consciousness in which the manifestation oc-

curs, but it has nothing to do with the arising of the manife-

station. Thus, although sentience enables human beings to
perceive other objects, and intellect enables them to discrim-
inate, they are in no way different from all the other phe-
nomena.
(3) The conceptual bondage arises only because each
human phenomenon assumes himself to be an independent
entity. As such he considers himself subject to the bonds of
space-time as something tangible and extraneous to his own
existence.
(4) Noumenality and phenomenality are identical in the
sense that noumenality is immanent in phenomenality. Phe-
nomenality has no nature of its own other than noumenal-
ity. Noumenality must, at the same time, transcend
phenomenality because noumenality is all there is. Phenom-
enality is merely the objective aspect of noumenality.
It is the identification of noumenality with each separate

phenomenon, thus producing a pseudo-subject out of what

is merely the operational element in a phenomenal object

that produces the phantom of an autonomous individual,

the ego, which considers itself to be in conceptual bondage.
 INTRODUCTION xi

The phenomenal functioning as such is quite impersonal,

and the illusory entity is wholly unnecessary therein, its
place being merely that of an apparatus or mechanism. The
impersonal functioning comports impersonal experiencing
of both pain and pleasure, and it is only when this ex-
perience is interpreted by the pseudo-subject as the ex-
periencer experiencing the experience in duration, that the
experiencing loses its bitemporal, impersonal element of
functioning and assumes the duality of objectivization as
subject/ object.
(5) What-we-are, as noumenon, is intemporal, infinite,
imperceptible being. What-we-appear-to-be as phenomena,
is temporal, finite, sensorially perceptible separate objects.
Truly, we are illusory figments in consciousness. The fact
that we, as separate, illusory entities, absurdly expect to be
able to transform ourselves into enlightened beings, shows
the extent of the conditioning to which we have been sub-
jected. How can a phenomenon, a mere appearance, perfect
itself? Only dis-identification with the supposed entity can
bring about the transformation.
(6) It would seem that the mechanism of living is based
on the belief that everything that happens in life is the result
of acts of volition by the concerned phenomenal objects, the
sentient beings. But this would be an incorrect belief because
it can be clearly seen that human beings react to an outside

stimulus rather than act volitionally Their living is pri-

marily a sequence of reflexes that leaves hardly any room
for what might be considered as acts of will or volition. Their
way of life is very much conditioned by instinct, habit, prop-
aganda and the More fundamentally, the
latest "fashion".
nothing more than an illusory infer-
fact is that volition is
ence, a mere demonstration, a futile gesture by an energized
"me-concept". Apart from the psychosomatic mechanism,
there is just no entity to exercise volition. All there is, is the
impersonal functioning and the inexorable chain of causa-
tion.
 xii EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

(7) In the absence of an entity ( redundant in the absence

of volition), who is there to exercise the illusory volition and
who is there to experience the results of it? Who is there to
be bound and who is there to be liberated?
The deepest possible understanding of these basics of
the Teaching leads to spontaneous and "non-volitional"
living. That is the experiencing of the Teaching, the ex-
periencing which is noumenal living. This experiencing
soon leads to the immense awakening that this life is one
great dream. Then we are enveloped in an overpowering
sense of self-effacing unity. What could be left thereafter but
the non-volitional witnessing of all that happens during the
remainder of our allotted span?
Such non- volitional witnessing - witnessing all that hap-
pens without judging - arises along with a non-objective re-
lation both to oneself and to others. A non-objective relation
to oneself occurs when there is no thought of oneself as an
object of any kind, physical or psychic. To know what one is
without the slightest need of any explanation from anyone,
to have the deepest possible conviction that oneself is totally
devoid of any "trace-element of objectivity", is to experience
the Teaching. The total lack of any objective quality can only
mean the absence of the very concept of both the presence
and the absence of the perceptible and the conceivable. A
non-objective relation to oneself naturally results in a non-
objective relation to others, which means ceasing to regard
all phenomena, sentient or insentient, as objects of oneself.
There is then an instant apperception that both the supposed
subject (oneself) and the supposed objects (others) exist only
as appearances. The result, in other words, is the elimination
of the misunderstanding known as "ignorance", which
means in effect the realization of our true nature.
Speaking as "I" (noumenon), we can all - each one of us
- say to our phenomenal selves, "be still and know that I am

God". It is only when the phenomenal self is absent that the

noumenal "I" can be present.
 all
the
in of to
ex-
not
their true en-
some
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Senses other opposites body-mind
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dis-identification
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Conciousness itself
< Personal True

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as universality...

ciousness

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 CHAPTER 1
SOME BASIC FACETS OF
THE TEACHING

I am
quite aware that any kind of self-enquiry must
start from the basic premise that I am not what I appear to
be phenomenally. Perhaps the conditioning is too power-
ful, but apart from a clear intellectual understanding of
the fact, I really find it extraordinarily difficult to ex-
perience the Teaching. I sometimes feel very despondent
about it.

We shall go into the matter of the appearance of the real-

ity presently. But first there is a simpler and more important
aspect of the matter to be discussed. When this difficulty was
brought up, Nisargadatta Maharaj used to ask a direct ques-
tion: "Who is asking this question?" The split-mind presents
the difficulty and seeks a solution in the same perverted con-
J

text. If s warped frame of reference. Maharaj would ex-

a
plain that you can perceive your body (at least a part of it)
without the aid of a mirror and you can also watch thought
presenting problems. It is a truism that the perceiver cannot
be the perceived. Since the body-mind is a psychosomatic
apparatus extended in space-time, the perceiver must be in
J
another dimension which includes the volume that is in
space- time. This dimension - which is the real you (and every
sentient being) - must obviously be space- time itself, which
includes the volume. In brief, the thought, the problem, is
something totally apart from what-you-are. All that "you"
can do is witness the arising of the problem, or more accu-
rately, the problem can only be witnessed - like any scene on
the road - without any involvement by "you".

I still don't understand why you think that I am not

what I appear to be phenomenally.
 SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 15

The answer you can tell me in your

will present itself if

own ingenuous kind of way (in which people generally con-

sider the subject) who you think you are.

With my simple mind, I say I am what is sitting here

conversing with you.

You mean, an object - a tri-dimensional object - with a

name which someone else has given it?
Anything wrong with that?

Nothing at all. There is no question of anything being

right or wrong. But I would have thought that an object is
only what appears as an image in someone's consciousness;
that all objects, as images in the minds of "others", are mere
inferences. What is more, science has come to the conclusion
that the solidity of the body is itself illusory because the body
is in fact nothing but a series of rhythmic wave functions, an
emptiness, a throbbing energy.

I must confess that I feel quite stunned.

You are stunned to be told that what you have considered

as a separate "self" is nothing more than an insignificant
wave pattern. Undoubtedly it's an individualized wave pat-
tern, but nevertheless, nothing more solid than a wave pat-
tern with a name! That is because you have never considered
yourself as anything other than the "solid" object with a
name.

Even if science tells me I am only a wave pattern, it is

not easy to disidentify myself from what I have always

considered myself to be. Anyway, what am I then?

Doesn't it strike you that what you are is what everybody

else is - Sentience? And therefore, instead of being a little
"self" by way of an object, you are indeed everything!

You mean, instead of being a lowly clerk or even a mil-

lionaire (with his own worries), I own everything?
 6

1 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Well, that is so in a very general way, but not in a mate-

rial sense. You don't own everything. You are everything.

This will need considerable deconditioning - and it

will take some time.

No, it needn't. Apperceiving WHAT-IS, needs no time. Ap-

perception is intemporality. It is the intellectual under-
standing in dialectics that needs time. If you were about to
drink some liquid, and you were suddenly warned that it
was poison, would you need time to apperceive the fact?
Could we pursue our talk about me being sentience
rather than an object?

Yes, but never said that the "me" which you have men-
I

tioned is not an object but sentience. What I said was that

you, as "I AM", and every living thing that can feel "I" - that
is sentience. Any kind of object is nothing whatever in itself;

it is only something perceived. "I" alone am. "I" alone could

BE - all else is perceived, and thus there cannot BE anything

but "I".

What about subject/object?

Subject /object is just another object. It is nothing but the

phenomenal object. "I" am beyond subject /object.
So you're saying "I" am pure noumenality, and not a
thing of any kind.

"I" am not an identity that understands something "I"

am that understanding itself.

**************

Would it be possible to boil down the Teaching to its

barest essentials?

Certainly. Would you like it in, say, four words - in fact,

three?
 7

SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 1

Are you serious?

Of course I am. "Non-existence of identity". That is the

$L
barest essential of the Teaching. There is really nothing else
to be understood, since all other elements of the Teaching
are dependent on that.

That seems simple enough.

Is it? Who is to bring about that non-existence of identity?

Obviously each of us, each individual.

What individual? Is it not understood that the individual

is illusory, a mere appearance in consciousness?

Then who is to do whatever is to be done?

That is just the point. As long as there is a thing to be done,
an utter impossibility, because non-existence of identity
it is

means the absence of anyone to do anything or to refrain

from doing it.

You are taking me around in circles.

No, I am not. All I am doing - or appear to be doing - is

trying to pullyou out of the vicious circle. Once it is apper-

ceived that there is neither any doing nor refraining from
any doing, what remains is the absence of all refraining from
any doing. That is the absolute absence of any identity
(neither the existence nor the non-existence) to do or to re-
frain from doing anything whatsoever.

In other words, JUST BEing.

Right. Any attempted "doing" (positive or negative)

turns the supposed do-er away from WHAT-HE-IS. Existence
(or presence) means in truth, existence (presence) of exist-
ence (of presence), or existence (or presence) of non-exist-
ence (of absence). Both existence and non-existence, or presence
 8

1 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

and absence, are concepts. WHAT-IS or BEINGNESS is the abso-

lute absence of both concepts, the absolute absence of both
identity and non-identity.

I thought you said it was all very simple.

It is once it is apperceived. It is an astonishing fact that

an extremely large majority of people - even those seriously

interested in the subject - cannot get away from the idea that,
whatever may be the essence of the Teaching, it is up to an
identity to convince himself that in fact he is not an entity.
At the other end is the extremely small minority that as-
sumes that it is up to the non-entity to bring about the con-
viction that such is all that they are as identities* What this
means is that all are firmly assuming that there is a non-iden-
tity! They seem to be in blissful ignorance that the non-en-

tity becomes the entity they assume themselves to be!!! That

is the whole problem. You must understand this. It is impor-

tant.

Entity and non-entity are the inter-related opposite

concepts. Is that what you mean?
Yes. Noumenality cannot include any concepts. What
every seeker truly seeks - all do not realize it - is the absence
of both the positive and the negative aspects of entity. But
so long as there is any seeking - and thus the seeker - the ab-
sence of what is present as an entity (positive or negative) can-
not happen. A self-anchored phenomenal object cannot
possibly find the noumenon that it truly is, just as it is im-
possible for a shadow to find its substance. The apparent
seeker in space-time is a concept. What is sought is another
concept. So is the seeking and the finding (or non-finding).
The absolute absence of all such concepts means the aban-
doning of the quest and such abandoning results in the anni-
hilation of the seeker into BEINGNESS.
 SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 19

I believe Nisargadatta Maharaj once asked one of the

regular visitors what she really wanted, and that he got

very angry when she answered that she wanted nothing
except enlightenment. Isn't that what everybody went to
Maharaj for?

Yes, most of the visitors did go to Maharaj with the

specific purpose and intention of getting liberated from the
"bondage of Samsara" But, from the very start, and at all
.

times, Maharaj dwelt on the fact that all is consciousness in

which the totality of manifestation appears as phenomena.
The human being is only a small part of that totality. He used
to repeat continuously that the human being is only an ap-
pearance in consciousness like all phenomenal objects, that
therefore, man cannot have any independent volition at all.
And further, this assumed volition was itself the conceptual
bondage. The regular visitor, if she had listened receptively,
would never have given the answer that "she" did.
The very question whether so and so is ignorant or
enlightened is totally misconceived because there is just no
entity to whom (or to which) the conditions of ignorance or
enlightenment could apply. What exists as an appearance is
the psyche-soma. If s an appearance that is subject to the
mechanism of phenomenality - i. e. duration - either on the
basis of causality or on the basis of the more recent system
of statistical probability. Such a phenomenal appearance
cannot possibly be capable of exercising freedom of choice
or action or anything else. And noumenality itself is wholly
devoid of any objectivity.
What thinks it is in bondage (or free) is identified in
thought with a phenomenal and appears to be in
object,
bondage or free. It is this thinking which is the real problem.
The "one" who thinks he is free is as much in bondage as the "one"
who thinks he is bound.
Then no concepts of bondage or freedom - or any con-
cepts - would apply if there is only experiencing of the
Teaching: stop thinking, stop conceptualizing, and JUST
BE. Have I got it right?
 20 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

You did have it right - until you framed the question in

your mind and expressed it!

************

In spite of all thatthe Masters have said, in spite of

having listened you and Maharaj quite a few times, the
to
question repeatedly pops up: Who is this "me" that con-
stantly intrudes on all perceiving, all thinking, all feeling?

The vocable "I" - the "me" who thinks he is the volitional

"do-er" - is what might be called the operational center in
the phenomenal sentient object that is known as the human
being. It's functional responsibility is to organize and care
for the phenomenon it controls. This vocable "I", or the
"me" -concept, attaches itself to the various emotional im-
pulses that arise (like love-hate, fear, greed, etc. ) for the pro-
tection and perpetuation of the phenomenon. It represents
the psychosomatic mechanism, and this representation
gives rise to the identification which is the cause of the sup-
posed bondage. This operational center is called the "head"
in Europe (what Wittington calls "the little man"), the
"heart" in China (physiologically more relevant), and the
" antahkarana" ("mind" including intellect, as the inner
equipment) in India.
This operational center forms the "me" -concept, the self,
the ego whose functioning is called "volition". It can only be

a mere concept since the center, quite ignorant of its

functional assignment, is as much a part of the psychic
mechanism as the heart or the liver is part of the physical
mechanism in the body. It assumes volition because it as-
sumes responsibility for the emotions arising in the psyche.
The vocable "I" (the ego) is thus merely inferential or con-
ceptual and has no basis at all for any independent action as
a thing-in-itself.

You mean, the assumption of responsibility (as voli-

which in turn is the cause of the
tion) causes the identity,
supposed bondage?
 SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 21

Quite so. Volition (and responsibility) is unnecessarily

assumed and events that are really subject to deter-
for acts
mination by what is called causation, the inexorable "law"
of cause-effect. This assumption of responsibility is what
causes the conceptual bondage, and the clear apprehension
of the true position removes the identification and is called
the conceptual liberation.

Is that all there is to the infamous bondage-and-libera-

tion question?

The facts are there to be apperceived. The vocable "I" (the

"me" -concept) cannot, by any kind of effort, ever be trans-
formed into the subjective "I". The reason for the fruitless-
ness of the search for the subjective "I" as an object by an
object should therefore be obvious. The subjective "I" is sub-
jectivity itselfwithout the slightest taint of objectivity. In
brief, BEINGNESS (or IS-NESS) is necessarily the absence of
both the interrelated phenomenal concepts of object and its
subject. This BEINGNESS results through the superimposition
and integration of both object and subject into nothingness,
or the void of phenomenality (the plenum of noumenality).

****************

Nisargadatta Maharaj sometimes said that the clear un-

derstanding of the nature of space and time is enough to
understand the nature of the entire phenomenal manife-
station. What precisely could he have had in mind?

Actually, Maharaj often said that a clear understanding

of a single aspect of the manifestation and its functioning is
sufficient for the purpose.What he had in mind was the fact
that the unmanifest and the manifest (with all that the
manifestation contains) is one concept and any distinction
made is entirely inferential. It is like what happens when a
dignitary is asked to unveil the portrait of another dignitary.
The portrait is covered by one large piece of cloth and the
 21 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

arrangement is made so that by merely pulling gently at one

end with a piece of string, the entire piece of cloth slowly
moves away from the frame and reveals the painting. No
part of manifestation could have been perceived unless it
was extended in an apparent dimension called space, and it
could not have been cognized unless it was extended in
another dimension called time. In other words, no manife-
station could have been perceived and cognized in the ab-
sence of space and time. This would seem to be an obvious
fact, but the significance of it is that this space-time media,
to which the is erroneously
sensorially perceptible universe
subjected, not an objective reality, not a thing-in-itself It
is .

is merely an inference, a concept, a psychic mechanism

devised to make it possible to perceive the universe. And if

the space-time, the necessary apparatus for the perceiving
of the universe, is entirely conceptual, can the nature of the
manifested universe be otherwise? Also, can the nature of
the universe and the psychosomatic mechanism called the
human being which forms part of it be anything but concep-
tual? This conclusion must lead us to the realization that
space-time as well as the universe (and, of course, the human
beings too) are truly that objective voidness which is non-
manifestation, that potential plenum which is the un-
manifest.

************

I have been intrigued by the fact that the unfortunate

manifestations and other unpleasantries, both natural and

apparently man-made, seem to be generally ignored in
discussions about metaphysical matters. Why is that?

Constant change based on the interrelated concepts like

love/hate, victory/ defeat, birth/death, etc. are the warp
and woof of the entire phenomenal manifestation. We see a
love relationship suddenly change into hate and vice versa.
Maharaj used to say that the love /hate relationship exists
 SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 23

not only between sentient beings but also between planets,

and that destructive manifestations like earthquakes, hurri-
canes and floods are the phenomenal effects of the "hate"
relationship between the planets (the astrological predic-
tions, though empirical, are based on planetary positions
which reflect the love /hate relationship between them).
A cat eats a mouse, a lion devours a man, a man dines on
a lamb, a cannibal feasts on a missionary, a soldier drops an
atomic bomb annihilating an entire city. This functioning is
interpreted as "good" by the perpetrators, while it is inter-
preted as "evil" by the victims. Each deed appears to each
as his deed or his experience, but the fact of the matter is that
no phenomenal object has any independent existence of his
own. There is none to perform any deed, none to suffer any
experience, and none to judge. There is only functionING
which is manifested in this manner - and the noumenal sub-
jective "I" is the functioning. The subjective "I", as the
functioning, is devoid of attributes and therefore has no dis-
criminatory faculty, while "responsibility" is a psychologi-
cal concept based on volition that is non-existent.
Viewed from the individual's angle, problems will never
cease; viewed from the angle of Totality, problems can never
arise. Happiness and unhappiness are affective phenomena
which appear to be experienced by things whereas the pure
functioning of noumenality is totally devoid of discrimina-
tion. There is no do-er and no deed done. The subjective" I"
is the DOING (the functioning) that is both the doer and what

is done.

**************

One of the most baffling - one might even say frustrat-

ing things about the Teaching is the apparently contra-
-

dictory statements Maharaj used to make almost in the

same breath.
 24 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

What did you expect? That the Teaching would be a sort

of lazymans guide to enlightenment? Consider the most
compassionate Teaching of any Master to an earnest
"seeker". Itwould contain so many enigmatical contradic-
tions that the seeker would be quite baffled.

But Maharaj did say his Teaching was simple.

Did he say was simple for anyone to understand? Did

it

he not also say that it was simple for anyone who had a re-
ceptive mind and a higher level of intelligence? We must not
forget that Maharaj, like other Masters, was trying to de-
scribe the indescribable, to express the inexpressible.
Curiously enough the same kind of difficulty is found by the
sub-atomic physicist in explaining his subject to a fresh stu-
dent. Briefly, the difficulty boils down to the fact that words
can function only in duality whereas their subject is non-du-
ality.

Have you experienced any specific difficulty in regard to

contradictions?

Well, consider for instance a statement like "noumenon

and phenomenon are one", or, "form is nothing but void,
"
void is nothing but form.

It isbecause of such apparent contradictions, which are

absolutely unavoidable, that phrases like "the gateless
gate", "the pathless path", "effortless action", etc. have,

come into active use. It is necessary to understand that it is

not just a "grandstand" play on words.
Now consider the matter of transcendence and im-
manence as the classic contradiction, which it is so necessary
to understand clearly. The mystery of transcendence and im-
manence existing together at one time lies in the fact that
while noumenon is unicity, phenomena cannot take place
except in duality so that there may be an observer and the
object observed. On the other hand, there cannot be any phe-
nomena without noumenon. The fact of the matter is that
the noumenon and phenomenon, the unmanifest and the
manifest cannot be different because manifestation is not the
 SOME BASIC FACETS OF THE TEACHING 25

"creation" but merely the mirrorization of the unmanifest.

The unmanifest Absolute must necessarily transcend the
relative manifest because the Absolute is all there is. The
relative is only its mirrorization. The Absolute must be im-
manent in the relative because the relative has no inde-
pendent existence.

You mean the substance must necessarily and simul-

taneously transcend, and be immanent in, the shadow be-
cause the shadow cannot exist independently of the
substance?

Right. Duality purely notional inasmuch as phenome-

is

nality is the actual aspect of the pure potentiality of nou-

menality extended in space-time for its objectivization.
Therefore, the Master has to say that since phenomena and
non-phenomena are the same, there is neither phenomena
nor non-phenomena.

"Then what is there?"

All there is, is Consciousness - in its potentiality when at

rest, and in its actuality when in movement.
CHAPTER 2
THE DO-ER

I was just thinking

That is too bad. Thinking is a pernicious habit.

I know you are always warning me against thinking or

conceptualizing.

Quite. All that conceptualizing does is to make the "me"-

concept stronger.

But how can we cease to think? Thinking is such a nat-

ural thing?

On the contrary. ... As Ramana Maharshi and Nisarga-

datta Maharaj have both repeatedly stated, one in Tamil and
the other in Marathi, "thinking not man's nature". Think-
is

ing is an acquired habit. Granted, it's an old habit, cultivated

from the first appearance of intellect in the child and rein-
forced regularly by the conditioning it receives at home, in
school and elsewhere. Anyway, what is it that you were
thinking about?

I was thinking that the trouble with us is that we keep

in mind what-we-are-not and forget what-we-are.

This is what comes out of thinking - sheer nonsense.
Why, I thought is was rather sagacious.
There you go again! Thinking it was sagacious. Actually,
thinking makes it otherwise.

Why?
 THE DO-ER 27

"Sagacious" is necessarily untrue because it is relative.

Whatever is Have you not
relative is necessarily untrue.
heard the wonderful statement of Lao-Tzu's that when you
find something beautiful and good, the ugly and the bad are
already there?

All I said was that the trouble with us is that we keep

in mind what-we-are-not and forget what-we-are.
Would it be any better if you kept in mind what-you-are
and forgot what-you-are-not? You would still be forgetting
one and remembering the other - both relative terms.

Are you not making a simple thing complicated?

My dear fellow! This is a typical case of the thief shout-

ing "stop thief"! WHAT-IS is truly simple. We make it compli-
cated by our philosophizing about forgetting and
remembering.

Anyway, what can I do?

Do nothing, as Nisargadatta Maharaj used to say. JUST
BE. Anything a "me" does can not but be wrong.

Why?
Because a "me" is thought to be doing it.

You're really confusing me. You know that?

There's that "me again! I am sorry but it is certainly not
my intention to cause confusion.
All right then. Just tell me, if there is nothing I should
do, what should I not do?

Maharaj has already told us. JUST BE. Doing and not
doing are both "doing" - one positive, the other the negative
aspect of the "me's" volition. Trying to do something or not-
to-do something brings in the illusory "me"-concept. It is al-
ways the "me" wanting to do something or not to do
 28 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

something with the idea of achieving. This is ridiculous be-

cause the "me" is the illusory ego without any entity. An il-
lusion wanting to do or not to do something is absurd. The
body is only an appearance in consciousness. How can an
appearance achieve anything?

But if one is not to do or not-do anything, one might as

well be dead.

How right you are - unwittingly of course! The "one"

would be dead along with the split-mind of dualism. What
would remain is the whole mind merely witnessing the
functioning in totality of the phenomenal manifestation
without any involvement. Therefore there would not be any
of the inter-related opposites like happiness and unhappi-
ness for the "me".

You mean when I rest content in JUST BEING, the "me-

concept" is absent.

I do mean that. The "me" -concept means identification

and therefore suffering. The absence of the "me" concept in

pure witnessing means absence of involvement and there-
fore absence of suffering. The identified man takes part and
suffers; the unidentified man merely watches the spectacle.
The identified man tries to understand the Teaching; the uni-
dentified man EXPERIENCES the Teaching.
CHAPTER 3
THINKING-A PERNICIOUS
HABIT

The other day, I casually mentioned that I was thinking

and you said that was very bad.

Yes, I remember, I did say that thinking was bad.

Why?
Why? Because it is a pernicious habit which takes you
away from WHAT-IS.
But how can you live without thinking? If I have to go
somewhere, surely I must think how I should proceed,
what way I should take, what plans I should make.
Of course you have to think when you are doing some-
Even when you know that life is unreal, dreamlike, as
thing.
almost every Master has been saying from times im-
memorial, life has to be lived as if it is real. So when think-
ing about something you are doing, you are not
// ,,
conceptualizing you are not creating images in your mind
,

and therefore such thinking becomes a part of the "doing".

When I said that thinking was a pernicious habit, I meant
thinking which creates images in the mind. A mind creating
images is always a split-mind thinking in dualism, thinking
in terms of a subject /object, "me"/"not-me". Thinking is a
pernicious habit because it creates separation as between
"me" and the "other", therefore conflict, and therefore uri-
happiness.
30 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Even assuming that thinking, other than the "doing-

thinking", is done by the split-mind, that's the only mind
I have, and that's what I have to use even to consider what

I am told by the various Masters. Or do I have two minds

- the whole mind and the split-mind?

ponder the words: you want to know if "I" have two

Just
minds, and which mind "I" should use "to consider" what
has been said by the Masters! Who is the "I" who would
"consider" what has been said by those who are one with
WHAT-IS?

But surely the Masters themselves were, before they be-

came one with the WHAT-IS, individuals like me who
listened to what the Masters had to say.

Indeed they were. And that is precisely why they take

the trouble to explain very simply that apart from the WHAT-
IS, which Ramana Maharshi described as "I-I" (subjective
the "me"s and the "you"s are mere appearances in
"I"), all
consciousness. They could not possibly be autonomous en-
tities with independence of choice and decision. That would

seem to be simple enough, precise enough and direct

enough to preclude any "considering"?

Then what are we talking about? Why talk at all?

Why indeed?! That is precisely the reason that most
Masters are not inclined to talk on this subject. That is pre-
cisely what Nisargadatta Maharaj meant when he said that
he at once accepted his Guru's direct message "you are truly-
Parabrahman" (noumenon), and that was it.

But Nisargadatta Maharaj did talk at regular sessions

to visitors.
 THINKING-A PERNICIOUS HABIT 31

Of course he did. But he made it perfectly clear innumer-

able times, it was Consciousness talking to Consciousness;

but more importantly, that so long as a visitor considered

that he was an individual listening to Maharaj as another in-
dividual, he was wasting his time.

I am aware that Maharaj used to make this statement

repeatedly, and I have wondered what he really meant.

It is quite simple really. When the listening is done by the

individual, it is the mind-intellect that does the listening and
it is of the nature of conceptualizing. When the listening is
done by Consciousness, the individual is absent in such
listening and then it is of the nature of EXPERIENCING. In
other words, while intellectual listening is "considering the
Teaching", listening without the individual present is "EX-
PERIENCING the Teaching".

Could you say something more about it?

Maharaj' s point was very clear. Intellectual listening is

done by the individual who in fact is merely an image in the
mind. What this amounts to is perceiving this that is objec-
tivized, and such perceiving prevents the apperceiving of
that WHICH-IS. When the individual ("me"-concept) is absent
in the listening with the whole mind, the separation between
the listener and the listening is lost. The listening then be-
comes part of the totality of functioning without any inter-
ference from the split mind. Then, as Maharaj used to say,
his words hit the target like an arrow because the path of the
arrow was not blocked by the "me" -concept.

So the intellectual listening is done by the split-mind,

while the listening which amounts to "experiencing the
Teaching" is done by the whole mind?

That's exactly it.

32 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

It is clear that conceptualizing must stop. It is also clear

that such thinking or conceptualizing is based on the "me"
concept. But how can I stop this conceptualizing?
I shall repeat your question and I am sure you will find
the answer in the question itself, "how can I stop conceptual-
izing?"

You mean the "I" who wants to know is itself the "me"-
concept on which all conceptualizing is based?

Indeed I do. Any answer would necessarily be in the

framework of conceptualizing. Also, the question implies an
effort to be made by the same "I" who is in reality merely an
image in someone's consciousness.

How is this dilemma solved?

The dilemma solves itself when it is analyzed and un-
derstood in its entirety. The intuitive understanding of the
futility of any so-called effort by a so-called individual en-
tity turns thought back from usual outward flow to its
its

source (the WITHIN, which itself is THAT-WHICH-IS). Such ap-

perception, comporting as it does the spontaneous aban-
doning of the very attitude of wanting to make the imagined
effort as a volitional act (which is in effect nothing other than
conceptualizing), takes "one" to the very essence of "one's"
being, the phenomenal absence of any "one" which is at once
the noumenal presence. Apperception, by its very nature, is im-
personal.

I'm still bothered by the basic difficulty that thought

is the culprit, since without the thinking, without the
mind, it is impossible to understand the problem in depth.
In any event, I accept that it's a fact that any positive ef-
fort to still the mind is bound to be an exercise in futility.
What now?
 THINKING-A PERNICIOUS HABIT 33

Nisargadatta Maharaj had a supremely simple solution.

Any effort to control the mind would only widen the split
in the divided mind. But, he continued, you are not the mind.
It is axiomatic that the perceiver can not be the perceived.

You can perceive your body, therefore you are not the body.
You can perceive your thoughts, therefore you are not the
mind. You can witness the thoughts that come and go, and
such witnessing will not be of the mind, if there is no in-
volvement by way of volitional reactions like comparing
and judging. Such witnessing will be of the same nature as
the witnessing of the traffic on the road (that is until the mind
"stops" in its natural flow because of some particular object
attracting attention). It will simply "be there" like the chirp-
ing of the insects, or the cry of a bird. In such witnessing is
apperception of what life and existence is all about. Volition
is absent and life is accepted, with all that it brings. There is

no separation between the acceptable and unacceptable.

CHAPTER 4
• ENLIGHTENMENT
LIBERATION -
REALIZATION

I have read have also read I Am That

Pointers. I . I am
rather intrigued by the assertion that you made in Point-
ers:"Awakening cannot take place so long as the idea per-
sists that one is a seeker ". As I understand it - and
probably the way most seekers understand it - it is the
seeker who seeks enlightenment or awakening or libera-
tion or moksha or by whatever name freedom from bondage
is called. What exactly did you mean ?

Let me first explain what is understood by the term

"seeker" so that there will not be any misunderstanding. The
term "seeker" refers to an individual phenomenon who con-
siders himself to be in bondage and seeks liberation or real-
ization.

Yes, that is what I also understand by the term. Most of

the scriptures specifically say that it is the individual who
is caught in the net of samsara and must, by his own efforts
and through the guidance of the guru and the study of the
scriptures, liberate himself.

1 SriNisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That (Bombay:

Chetana, 1973)
 ENLIGHTENMENT-REALIZATION-LIBERATION 35

What we regard as scriptures today, were at one time

written by some human being, in your terms some
enlightened human being, and when he wrote that scripture,
or gave his talks, he must obviously have had certain people
in mind to whom his words were addressed. It would there-
fore not be right to accept such words as suitable for all types
of people. Then as time passes, there is the inescapable
danger of various interpolations being made, and certain in-
convenient portions being deleted to suit the changing con-
ditions and circumstances. Perhaps this is one of the reasons
that Nisargadatta Maharaj preferred not to refer unduly to
the scriptures. All he asked was that the listener keep an
open and receptive mind. It would be a waste of time to
listen to him with a mind that was burdened with a lot of
accumulated concepts. Maharaj talked from his own ex-
perience.

can understand what you say about the scriptures. But

I

I find
it difficult to accept the proposition that the seeker

and what he considers as his efforts are both irrelevant to

the attainment of awakening.

Perhaps we could follow Maharaj's method of beginning

at the starting point and see where our meditation on the
subject leads us.

The starting point would still be the seeker, would it

not?

Indeed it it would be necessary to throw the

would. But
floodlight of enquiry on the seeker and find out exactly who
or what he is. We would then examine if there is anything to
be attained and if so, the means of attaining it.

That would be a wonderful experience. But, before we

proceed, can I ask you a personal question? Are you
enlightened?
 36 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

The answer to your question is really contained in the

enquiry we have undertaken, but to satisfy your curiosity at
the very start, the answer is "yes". I do not want you to feel
that your question has been sidetracked.

I am grateful for such a direct answer. Please go on.

Let us start with the proposition that all "you"s and all

"me"s are merely appearances in consciousness. And

further, that the totality of the manifestation (of which all

sentient beings are an intrinsic part) and its functioning is

like a dream.

Yes I can accept that - at least intellectually, and dialec-

tically. It has been made clear both in Pointers and I Am
That

If that is accepted then the rest is easy. No individual who

has been considered "enlightened" has ever himself had any

pretensions that he was enlightened, although others might
think he is enlightened. If any individual considers himself
enlightened, then he is not.

Why so?
Because the pre-condition of enlightenment is that the
must be annihilated.
identified individual self No self or
phenomenon has ever been enlightened.
Does that amount to saying that no one has ever been
enlightened?

Yes it does. How could any "one", any "you" or any "me"
possibly become enlightened? Of course, a phenomenon - a
psychosomatic appearance in consciousness - could cer-
tainly imagine that he has become enlightened. Precisely as
a dreamed phenomenon does in a dream, until he disap-
pears along with all the other phenomena when the dreamer
awakes.

But we do talk about sages being enlightened.

 ENLIGHTENMENT-REALIZATION-LIBERATION 37

We certainly do, but that is part of a lot of nonsense we

generally speak and get involved in! Thus it is said that the
Buddha attained nirvana. But the Buddha himself said
he had not attained anything. Ramana
specifically that
Maharshi repeatedly stated that what people usually call
"realization" or "enlightenment" already exists. It is not
something to be acquired. Therefore, any attempt to attain
it would be a self-defeating exercise. But did his visitors

believe him?

Apparently not. The search by seekers for attainment,

and various intense discussions about the best methods
for attaining, seem to continue unabated. Why is that?

The conditioning which is forced upon a child, at home

and in schools ever since the dawn of intellect, is so power-
ful that even the word of a sage is not enough to remove it.
Indeed, the pressing message of most of the Masters (includ-
ing Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi) - that lib-
eration is nothing other than the removing of the illusion of
bondage - seems to have had little effect.

Then what precisely is it that the seeker is seeking?

As Nisargadatta Maharaj used to say, what is sought is

liberation or enlightenment or whatever, as an object. One by

which they could, as separate entities, enjoy the pleasures of
this world fully and totally without any dilution.

You mean we are really afraid of losing ourselves, our

individual identifications?

Precisely so. The seeker sees no point in being

enlightened if there is no one to enjoy that state of enlight-
enment!

If you put it that way, there seems to be some strength

in that viewpoint.
 38 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

"Seems" is correct. As I just said, the conditioning is so

strong that what is simple and obvious appears complicated
and obscure.

We would seem to be at an impasse. If enlightenment

to most is a symbol (a conceptual construct of what
sort of
we are), then we cannot be what we are until and unless
we give up the wrong notion of what we think we are!
That is very well put. Without the "me" -concept you will
feel lost, and with it you will never find WHAT-YOU-ARE!

What is the solution?

The solution is in the realization that you already are

what you are trying to become. It's in the seeing that there
could never be a "me" to be enlightened.

In other words, "letting go" of the "me"-concept.

go" cannot be achieved.

Exactly. But, this "letting It can
only happen as a consequence of a deep conviction.

How can this deep conviction arise? Presumably, it can-

not be achieved either.

Having arrived at this conclusion is itself the first step -

if such it can be But each Master had his own intui-

called.
tive "trick" to jerk the split-mindback into its wholeness.
Thus, if the Zen Master found his disciple very seriously
using his split- mind to argue himself into the corner of an
impasse he would look out the window and make some ir-
relevant remark, like "how well the plants in the garden
have grown". The effect would be to make the split-mind
stop with a jolt.

Or, Nisargadatta Maharaj making a remark like "the

seeker himself is what he is seeking".
 ENLIGHTENMENT- REAL1ZA TION- LIBERA TION 39

Quite so. As I said, every master has his own trick which,
let us understand, is used spontaneously and never con-

trived. One of these I like very much is that of the Chinese

sage who, when asked "what is great nirvana 1." is supposed
to have answered, "great nirvana is not to commit oneself to
the karma and death;. " When further asked, "what
of birth
is the karma of birth and death?", his answer was "to wish

for great nirvana is the karma of birth and death"! This would
apparently seem as utterly frustrating as Nisargadatta
Maharaj saying that the seeker was wasting his time because
there was nothing to be sought. How could the wish for nir-
vana itself be the bondage? The answer lies in the word
"wish". It is the wish that is the cause of bondage, irrespec- 3

tive of whether the desire is for some material benefit or for i

liberation.
only apperception, an intuitive understanding of
It is

WHAT-IS, the apprehending of the non-duality between the \

manifest and the unmanifest, of the non-being of any in-

dividual as a separate entity to need any enlightenment,
which brings about the realization of our true nature. Only
this removes the misapprehension about bondage and lib-
eration. Only then are both seen as mere concepts and there-
fore incapable of creating either bondage or liberation.

If there is no "me" to be enlightened, why all the excite-

ment about the state of enlightenment?
All the excitement exists because the conditioning in man
has inverted his viewpoint to an extent that makes him think
that the abnormal condition of chaos, unrest and conflict is
his normal state. He thinks that the normal state of un-
5

fathomable peace and contentment (glimpses of which he

occasionally gets in those rare moments when the mind is \

free of thoughts) is an abnormal state that must be acquired

or attained by special positive efforts.
 .

40 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

You mean what is considered as the state of enlighten-

ment is man's normal birthright which he has forgotten?
That in order to regain that birthright, what is needed is
not any positive doing to attain anything, but merely the
abandoning of this conditioning which prevents the
knowing of that original state?

That is it precisely. Nothing more and nothing less, which

Nisargadatta Maharaj said in two words: JUST BE. Appercep-
tion of this means, in effect, experiencing the Teaching.
;

That is all there is to it? And all the fuss that is made
about enlightenment and realization. .

Leads only to the obfuscation of what is essentially

simple and obvious. As Ramana Maharshi said, "realiza-
tion" or "liberation" is nothing other than "ridding yourself
you are not free". The same thought was
of the illusion that
expressed by an ancient Chinese sage as "never having been
"
bound, you have no need to seek deliverance.

Let's see if I have this right. When the human being,

that is really a phenomenal becomes aware of
object,
WHAT-IT-IS, he or it is then enlightened or awake or liber-
ated, or whatever you want to call it?

Almost, but not quite. The situation could be described

more accurately by saying: "Enlightenment occurs when
what the phenomenal object is nonphenomenally, becomes
aware of WHAT-IT-IS, via the phenomenal object". No phe-
nomenon as such can ever become enlightened.
So really my earlier question "are you enlightened?"
was misconceived!
Precisely like asking someone "have you stopped beat-
ing your wife", when he not only had never beaten his wife,
but he never even had a wife!
 ENLIGHTENMENT-REALIZATION-LIBERATION 41

I just realized that there is an inherent misapprehen-

sion in the statement "enlightenment cannot be attained

"
because we have always had it.

How do you mean?

Well, it suggests that enlightenment is a thing or object.

True and the more basic point is that the absence of

enlightenment as an object means the absence of its subject.
Therefore, the misapprehension consists not only in the fact
that enlightenment is not an object to be attained but that, (

more importantly, there is no "one" as a subject to attain \

enlightenment. Or anything else for that matter.

That brings us back to square one. What then are we? \

The answer is provided by the Chinese sage Hui-Hai

when he said that "enlightenment" was a means of being rid
of conceptual thinking. Is that not a sufficiently clear answer
to your query?

Do you mean that we are the conceptual thinking?

Of course "we" are the conceptual thinking which
enlightenment suddenly gets rid of.

So that what remains is just enlightenment which can

only be a noumenal "I".

Precisely the noumenal "I" without the

- slightest touch
of any objectivity or temporality.

In other words, there has never been - never can be -

any "us" to do anything, to attain enlightenment or to be

freed from any bondage. It is fantastic, utterly unbelieva-
ble.

Why is it unbelievable? Because "we" cannot have it? Be-

cause "we" cannot work hard at it? Because the conclusion
is ineluctable that "we" ARE the enlightenment that "we"
have been seeking? Because the seeker turns out to be what
 42 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

is sought? Ramana Maharshi has clearly stated that "there

is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free
will, neither path nor achievement". The same message has
been repeated by many sages in different parts of the world
at different times, including my Guru Nisargadatta Maharaj.
But instead of BEING that Teaching, "we" want it as an ob-
ject!
CHAPTER 5
DREAMING AND
AWAKENING
Life has often been cavalierly compared to a dream, and
enlightenment to the awakening from the life-dream.
Now, my difficulty is this: If the individual human being
is merely a phenomenal object in someone's conscious-
ness, how can this phenomenon dream, and how can it be
awakened?
What The sentient being as an ob-
a beautiful question!
ject is only a phantom, a mere psychosomatic mechanism
through which only illusoryjniages can be produced. The
interpretations of these images are generally known as per-
life. This means in effect that all actions
sons and events in
and movements that are sensorially perceived - in fact, all
phenomenal existence can only be figments of imagination
(of mind, in consciousness).

In other words, although we may think of ourselves as

autonomous entities, we are actually nothing more than
dreamed characters. While the dreamed characters are
seen as such when we (as the sleeper) wake up, we are still
asleep in the living dream. But who wakes up from the
living dream?

Nisargadatta Maharaj gave me the answer when I asked

him this specific question, but not before chastising me with
the remark, "you should know better than to ask a silly ques-
tion like that". The answer, of course, was: "Who can it be
but the consciousness, the personal consciousness as the
 44 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

dreamer, which has identified itself in split-mind with its

own dreamed object, (the individual psychosomatic mech-
anism) as the pseudo-subject?".
It is therefore always the identified, individualized
dreamer dreamed object whether in
that awakes, never his
the personaldream or the living dream. How can there be
awakening for the dreamed object?

In other words, it can never be the sentient being who

awakes?

Not quite correct. It is correct if by the "sentient being"

you mean the being, the psychosomatic apparatus, but
wrong if you understand that the sentient being is really sen-
tience. An apparatus without sentience is dead matter. It is
sentience or consciousness that has mistakenly identified it-

self with the apparatus (which is the dreamer) which awakes

when there is realization of the mistaken identity.

So then awakening is in effect a sort of dis-covering (by

removing the cover of maya) that what appears to be objec-
tive is in fact subjective.

Awakening is the disappearance of appearance, like the

disappearing of the illusion of the substantiality of a mirage
or a rainbow, with knowledge of the nature of the appear-
ance which causes an optical illusion.

Does it mean then that in either dream the dreamed ob-

from the dreamer?
ject is totally different

No. Awakening means realizing that what is apparently

objectiveis truly subjective. The dreamed-object cannot be

anything other than its source; the dreamer, the conscious-

ness, that is dreaming. The point is that the dreamed-objects
cannot have any nature of their own other than that of their
source. The shadow has no nature of its own other than that
of the substance without which the shadow cannot occur.
 DREAMING AND A WAKENING 45

So everything in the dream is the dreamer thereof. Thus

the dreamed object (the illusory individual sentient
being) is the sentience of consciousness (the dreamer).

Quite correct. But us not forget that the dreamer, the

let

consciousness, itself is not an object and so does not have

any nature of its own, other than as a mere reflection of its
own source, the Noumenon. It is for this reason that the
Masters have always asserted that there never has been any
creation or destruction. As Nisargadatta Maharaj constantly
repeated, the whole universe and everything in it is an illu-
sion, like "the child of a barren woman".

What does "awakening", in the final analysis, actually

mean?
"Awakening" means that total disappearance of all phe-
nomenal problems, resulting in a perpetual feeling of total
freedom from all worries. It is a feeling of lightness, of float-
ing in the air, untouched by the impurity - and confusion -
of the split mind. It is as if the very root of all problems has
been demolished, as if the Hydra has been fatally pierced in
the heart to prevent the heads from growing again and
again.

In other words, as you have said elsewhere, the prob-

lems will never cease from the viewpoint of the in-
dividual, but, from the viewpoint of Totality, problems can
never arise.

Quite so. You might say that awakening is in effect the

experiencing of the Teaching.

One last question. You said that asking someone if he

isenlightened is like asking him if he has stopped beat-
ing his wife, though he had never beaten his wife. He was
never other than enlightenment itself. Nevertheless, I
would like to know what happens to the "phenomenal ob-
ject" after there has been "awakening".
 46 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

On awakening, the identification with the phenomenal ob-

<
ject disappears. The phenomenal object itself continues to
live phenomenally during its alloted span of duration, at the
end of which it "dies" and is disposed of by burial or crema-
tion. The consciousness that was in movement merges with
the consciousness at rest. The awakened, after being awake
for the rest of phenomenal life, finally falls into the deep
sleep of the Noumenon - phenomenal presence becomes
phenomenal absence and noumenal PRESENCE.
During the continuation of the life span, the dreamed
character - the dreamer - exists only as an object in the living
dream of "others" who are as yet unawakened. The
awakened knows that "he" himself is the awakening. There
is the apperception that he is the pure unconditioned sub-
jectivity by means which he and all sentient beings were
of
dreamed. In fact, the dreamer, on awakening, finds that
there never was a dreamer, only the phenomenon of dream-
ING.

What this means then is that the living dream is merely

an objectivization in consciousness, in which neither the
dreamer nor the apparent dreamed entities could possibly
have any independent existence.

Quite so. You started your questioning by saying that life

has often been "cavalierly" compared to a dream. Actually,
almost all Masters have compared the manifestation to a
dream, not cavalierly but very seriously and quite literally.
Indeed, the sage Vasishtha has categorically stated that there
is no difference between the personal dream and the living
dream. The dreaming takes place in consciousness. All ob-
jects, all appearances are dreamed. Perception and its con-
ceptual interpretation takes place through the sensorialized
phenomena who are also dreamed objects.

Are you saying that objects are essentially nothing

more than organs of interpretation, through whose inter-
pretive operation the universe appears?
 DREAMING AND A WAKENING 47

Yes. The living dream is dreamt by the sentient beings.

Their personal dreams are microscopic reproductions of the
living dream, which each sentient being dreams in his per-
sonal life.

Does it mean then that the sentient being is the dreamer

of both his personaldream and the living dream?
Certainly not! There is no dreamer as such - That is the
whole truth. Indeed, it is the essence of the apprehension of
what we really ARE. It would lead to a lot of confusion to
think we are only "dreamed" because we are both dreamed
and dreaming. There is no such dreamer separate from the
dreamed. There is only dreamING, the functioning of Con-
sciousness. There is no entity to perform, nor is anything
performed. There is only spontaneous actING, a sort of non-
action because there is no actor.

Could you make it a little simpler?!

Perhaps it could be conceptually considered as this:

(a) There is only ONE DREAM without a dreamer.
(b) THAT-WHICH-WE-ARE is the dreamING.
(c) Each "me" is dreamed, and each "me" dreams a per-

sonal dream based on the personal "self".

Briefly, "I" am the dreaming of the universe, and "you"
perceive it phenomena, a dreamed object.
as a sensorialized
"I" being the dreamer and the dreaming of the universe,
would necessarily be awake in order that the dreaming may
occur.
Perhaps you would prefer to have it put another way:
You wake up from you personal dream into the living
dream. It is only in deep sleep that there is no dreaming at
all because in deep sleep there is no "me". And the apper-

ception of this fact means awakening from the living dream

to WHAT-IS.
CHAPTER 6
"REBIRTH" CONSIDERED

Nisargadatta Maharaj did not believe in rebirth in spite

of the fact that most Hindu scriptures are agreed that there
is rebirth. What is your feeling about this?

Maharaj always said that he spoke out of conviction and

experience. He made it clear that what he said was not al-
ways based upon what the scriptures said. Maharaj' s Teach-
ing did not - indeed it could not - accept the concept of
rebirth. A body can be said to be "born" and it can be said
to "die", precisely as the words indicate. The body is "born",
it grows into maturity and then on to old age, until it finally
"dies" - that is to say, the body
and decays under-
dies
ground, or is cremated and turns to ashes. The body, after
death, is irretrievably and totally dissolved. The body there-
fore cannot be re-born. The breath, after death, mingles with
the air and the sentience mingles with the universal con-
sciousness.
Anything other than the objective can only be the sub-
jective. And the subjective cannot "exist" as subjective be-
cause it is The only form of existence is that which
formless.
is and the body cannot be reborn after it has been
objective -

dissolved. The subjective, or more accurately, the non-objec-

tive obviously cannot either be born or die, let alone be re-
born. So what is there to be reborn?

What about the "soul" or the psychic body or whatever

it is that is supposed to be subject to karma and therefore
to be reincarnated in another body to fulfill the effects of
the karma?
 50 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

You refer to the belief in an animus that may suffer birth

but is never subject to death, and passes from one body to
another in the apparent sequence of time. But surely such an
animus must be an object (the non-objective is obviously not
concerned in the antics of any object), and an object can only
be a concept, and nothing else. In other words, the animus,
as an object, is only a concept; and on the other hand, any
entitification (and re-entitification on rebirth!) of subjectiv-
ity is ridiculous because subjectivity does not have even a
touch of objectivity, and thus could have no "ens".

How did the notion of rebirth arise at all if the whole

thing is so ridiculous?

It is identification with an imagined and spurious inde-

pendent entity that is supposed to be born, to suffer and die.

Identification incurs the process of causality called karma
and also causes the notion of being in bondage to arise. It is
always the entity that is spurious - the phenomenon, as its
name implies, is merely an appearance in consciousness that
can be neither bound nor free.

Did not Maharaj sometimes refer to "thousands of

lives" in various contexts?

Yes, he did, but the reference was obviously to the process

of evolution. Maharaj often referred to the dream play that
life is. In this temporal dream play where sentient beings are
created and destroyed in thousands every minute, evolution
must obviously form the basis of the play of Nisarga (Life).
In the physicist's bubble chambers, infinitesimally small
high energy "elementary" particles (many of which have a
lifetime much shorter than a millionth of a second) collide
and annihilate each other or create new particles that give
rise to a fresh chain of events in manifestation. Similarly,
every baby born would be expected to play a particular role
in the dream play so that the play may proceed on its inevi-
table course. The sentient being, which as a mere appearance
 'REBIRTH" CONSIDERED 51

in consciousness cannot possibly have independent choice

of action, is created in order to fulfill a particular function
(whether as a Hitler or a Gandhi or an insignificant in-
dividual)and not the other way around. It is not that a new
function is created just so that the individual soul or animus
(or whatever) be punished or rewarded for his karma in a
previous birth! The supposed individual in any case is not
an independent, autonomous entity, - he merely carries out
his destined function which paves the way for the destined
function of another supposed individual in the temporal fu-
ture, according to the scenario of the dream play. There
would necessarily be continuity between the form that dies
and the new form that is born because evolution must go on,
and nature does not start from scratch each time. This is no
doubt the reason why Mozart could compose music when
he was twelve and Jnaneshwar could produce the
Jnaneshwari at the age of sixteen. But there is no reason for a
conceptual individual to identify himself with a series of
births in the temporal manifestation.

Did not the Buddha preach rebirth?

No, he did not. Indeed, the Buddha has said, "As there is
no self, there is no transmigration of self; but there are deeds
and continued effects of deeds. These deeds are being done
but there is no doer. There is no entity that migrates, no self
is transferred from one place to another; but there is a voice

uttered here and the echo comes back. " Could it have been
said any better or any clearer?

Ifthe theory of rebirth and karma is to be accepted, the

question inevitably arises: On what karma was the first
human being based?
Quite so. All problems arise only when the basic fact of
phenomenal manifestation is ignored: the entire manifesta-
tion is just a concept. Nothing is created, nothing is de-
 52 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

The sages have said so from time immemorial. And,

stroyed.
most Masters do not even refer to the matter of rebirth in
their purest Teaching.
CHAPTER 7
THE INHERENT IDENTITY

Is there one single aspect of the Nisargadatta Teaching

which would cover the entire Teaching? Is there some-
thing, a clear understanding of which would bring about
the experiencing of the entire Teaching?

I can tell you what Maharaj himself considered the very

core of his Teaching. Indeed, Saint Jnaneshwar in his Amri-
tanubhava gave a very apt simile: a loosely tied dhoti - when
one end of it is given a pull, all the rest of it comes loose. This
master key is the clear apprehension of the inherent identity
*
of conceptual opposites. Maharaj said that the apprehension
of even one pair of such interdependent counterparts is it-
self liberation, adding that to "see" one is to "see" all. His
assurance is based on the fact that this perfect apprehension
will result in immediate disidentification with the "me" The .

"me" being the pseudo (phenomenal) subject of pseudo )

(phenomenal) objects, both of which are mere concepts

without any nature of their own. The mutual annihilation of
both these concepts unveils the noumenal functioning
which is all there is.

How does this disidentification come about?

Itdoes not really matter whether the concepts refer to ob-
ject subject, phenomenon and noumenon, or presence
and
and absence or any other pair of opposites. All are concerned
with the splitting of the mind (called dualism) in the process
of conceptualization and this is the supposed bondage. The
absence of this process of dualism, non-dualism (a-dvaita),
which implies mind upstream of all conceptualizing, is sup-
posed freedom or liberation as it denotes a return to the orig-
 54 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

inal wholeness of mind. It implies disidentification with a

phenomenal object, the earlier identification with which had
involved the splitting of the whole-mind into the dualism of
a pseudo-subject and pseudo-object. Thus the split-mind
dualism is the supposed bondage, the return to wholeness
is It is the assimilation of the interrelated op-
liberation.
posites a superimposition
- - that results in their mutual can-

cellation or negation. But it can never result in their union,

because it is psychologically impossible to unite two contra-
dictory thoughts. It is the negation of the interrelated self-
contradictory opposites which results in a wholeness that is

conceived as a void. It is important to realize - and Maharaj

gave great importance to this point - that the void resulting
from assimilation is a void that continues to be a concept,
which itself has to be negated in order to realize our true na-
ture. In other words, the essential negation is the further ne-
gation of the result of the negation of presence and absence.

I can intuitively feel the truth of what you are saying,

but could you put it a different way so that I might under-

stand it intellectually?

That sounds queer - usually the difficulty expressed is

that something is intellectually understood but found diffi-
cult to accept! Let me put it this way. but please remem-
. .

ber the basic inadequacy of any explanation:

The void that results from the assimilation or superim-
position of the two opposites of presence and absence has to
be known to "something"; otherwise there would be no ab-
solute PRESENCE. The mutual negation of knowledge and its
interrelated opposite has to be known to some KNOWLEDGE
Ci
that has existed upstream of the conceptual pair of op-
posites, knowledge and ignorance. KNOWLEDGE is the sub-
stratum of all conceptualization (and manifestation). That
sub-stratum, that substance, is the further negation (neti,
neti) of the void resulting from the superimposition of
 THE INHERENT IDENTITY 55

knowledge and ignorance, of presence and absence. Con-

sciousness is present during the waking state, absent during
the deep sleep state or under sedation. But both these states
of consciousness - (presence and absence) - are known to the
ever present AWARENESS. To put this in another way, if some
photographic image is projected on to a screen and then
switched off, the presence and the absence of the image,
when would leave a void. But the screen, the
assimilated,
substratum on which the images appeared and disap-
peared, would still be there. It is this screen (of AWARENESS)
on which occurs the presence and absence of consciousness.
Our real nature is the AWARENESS which is the absence of the
absence (of void) resulting from the cancellation of both pre-
sence and absence.

What is the significance of Maharaj's statement that

clear apprehension of the inherent identity of even one
pair of opposites is itself enlightenment?

The significant point about the negation of the opposites

is and analyzed
that all the pairs of opposites can be grouped
under the single aspect of negative-positive. The subsequent
annihilation of the resultant void-concept can come about
only when the conceptual dualities are considered in their
personal aspect of "you" and "I" (me). This is because the
resultant voidness is a personal one which can only be
further abolished by the negation of both the pseudo-sub-
ject and its object. Such negation of the personal voidness
can be apprehended only by the immediate apperceiving
that is noumenality, apperceiving at the unsplit source of
phenomenality - without reification, without rationaliza-
tion, without the interference of mentation. Saint
Jnaneshwar in his Amritanubhava says that he could get such
apperception only by the grace of his Guru (by the sur-
rendering of his personal identity to his Guru).

What do you mean when you say that the dualities

should be considered in the personal aspect?
 56 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Under the personal pronoun "I" (me) would come the

group of negative elements (self, sub)ect,nirvana, negative,
non-manifestation, etc. ) and under the personal pronoun
"you" would come the group of positive elements (other,
object, samsara, positive, manifestation, etc. ).

The practical application of the difference between dual-

ism and non-dualism, and the total abolition of this differ-
ence can be seen in the different perspectives of perceiving

(a) phenomenal cognizing where the pseudo-subject (the

?
ignorant man) perceives pseudo-object;
(b) noumenal cognizing where phenomenality is cognized
subjectively, i. e. object is seen as subject only;
'
(c) non-dual cognizing where phenomenality (object) and
noumenality (subject) are seen as not separate - which im-
plies the total demolition of all interdependent counterparts.
These are three stages in the conceptual evolution of
enlightenment - ignorance, apperception and enlighten-
ment. The sage comes to the final truth: the final negation of
the conceptual void created by the negation of the "me" and
the "not me" This is the "I-I" (subjective I) which is both the
unmanifest and the manifest, both the transcendence and im-
manence.

You mean there cannot be "phenomena" without "nou-

menon" nor "noumenon" without "phenomena"?
That's it. "Phenomena" and "noumenon" might be said
to be two aspects of non-conceptuality. Noumenon, as the
source of everything, cannot be anything; and a phenome-
non, being devoid of self-nature is no thing in itself but, as
the emanation from noumenon, is everything. A deep un-
derstanding that neither can be anything but that everything
is both - that forever separate as concepts, they are, when

unconceived, eternally inseparable - is the experiencing of

the Teaching. Indeed, that IDENTITY is itself this experience.
 THE INHERENT IDENTITY 57

What precisely do you mean to convey when you say

that the IDENTITY is itself the experiencing of the Teach-
ing?

I should think that was self-evident. "Being" and "non-

being" cannot be without the other. Therefore they can ob-

jectively exist only as two conceptual aspects of one whole
which itself cannot be conceived as such because it is pre-
cisely that which seeks to conceive - that which we ARE.
Where there is neither being nor non-being, neither appear-
ance nor void, neither subject nor object, there has, therefore,
to be IDENTITY, which cannot perceive itself. That is non-con-
ceptuality. That is subjectivity. That is absolute awareness
not aware of itself. That is what we ARE. WHAT-WE-ARE can-
not be the object of what-we-are.
But we do conceive the pairs of opposites because "we"
are then the divided mind, split into a subject/ object rela-
tionship when the universal consciousness (which we are)
identifies itself with the psychosomatic mechanism. But the
split-mind (which is the content of consciousness) gets
united into its wholeness when the identity of opposites is
apperceived and the personal consciousness regains its uni-
versality.

Am I to understand then that phenomena are merely a

projection by noumenon that could be ignored as illusory?

Phenomena are not something projected by noumenon

because then they would be two separate things, each ex-
isting independently. Phenomena are noumenon in its objec-
tive expression; they are noumenon extended in space-time
as its appearance. If you consider the phenomenal universe
by itself and then decide that it is illusory, you will be making
the basic mistake of not apperceiving the essential identity
between the polaric opposites.

Where do we, as sentient beings, fit into these op-

posites?
 58 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

In this appearance, which is an extension in space-time

called manifestation, we are a part of the manifestation in

which we, as sentient beings, have no nature of our own. But
that functioning is itself what we sentient beings ARE, in
which noumenality and phenomenality are identical. In
what we ARE there cannot be any entity (which is a phenom-
enal concept) and no phenomenal object can have any na-
ture of its own because it just does not exist. In what we ARE
there is no duality, only an independent functionING, the
manifesting of non-manifestation. In brief, we are noumenal-
ity, extended in space-time, functioning as phenomenality. Nou-
menality is necessarily incognizable because it is absolutely

all that we whether non-manifested or in apparent

are,
manifestation. Apperceiving this is experiencing the Teach-
ing.
CHAPTER 8
THE WHOLE TROUBLE

Whydoes the Absolute not know itself? Many talks

seemed end with this question - and Nisargadatta
to
Maharaj invariably replied with the question, "Where is
the need for the Absolute to know itself?" He seemed to
feel that the counter-question was all the answer that was
necessary. What did Maharaj mean - and did he
deliberately stop all further probing with that counter-
question?

That is a lot of questioning! As was typical of Maharaj,

deliberately or otherwise, he gave an answer so accurate that
itreally needed no further elucidation. Indeed, any further
supplementary explanation could have clouded both the
question and the answer! In this particular case, consider the
question: Why does the Absolute not know itself? - the an- \

swer is that it does not need to know itself.

I'm afraid I still don't get it.

The question is not really understood in its implication,

which is that "knowing" anything brings in an object to
know. For the Absolute to know itself, the Absolute will have
to objectify and that means that the Absolute is some thing
that does some thing.
Also, when the Absolute thereafter ceases objectifying,
there would then be no object and the Absolute could no
longer be the subject. In other words, briefly, for the Abso- S

lute toknow itself, a subject/ object relation would have to \

be created. And this is absurd. Where is the need to estab-

lish such a relationship? Indeed, this is the whole trouble, (

the cause of all the trouble in the phenomenal universe - the

subject/ object relationship.
 60 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

How do you mean the whole trouble?

Is it not the whole trouble? How could the Absolute be
either subject or object? And for what reason? The Absolute
is just Absolute "I" is always just "I". The billions of "me"s
-

are mere concepts, never objects because if the "me" were

an object it would need a subject, whereas "I" am pure sub-
jectivity. Such a subject would itself be an object and then "I"
would no longer be "I-I". Do you see this point?
No!

Well, do you not see that the whole trouble from time im-
memorial has been that the "me", an illusion, has been
searching for the Absolute which is I- AM. "I" am all that there
IS or can be. How can there by any "me" or "you" or "him"

or "her" in search of anything? All there is IS "I" - the seeker

IS the sought.

Oh. the "trouble" that Maharaj had in mind

Is this
when he exhorted his listeners "not to scratch at a place
and thereby produce an itch that was not there before?"
Right. And this is also the
7

reason Maharaj smahavakya

was JUST BE.

And this is also what is meant by experiencing the

Teaching?

Right. In brief, all questions including those such as "is

XYZ ignorant or enlightened?" and "is XYZ's life pre-
destined or does he have free-will?" are all based on a false
premise - that XYZ is an autonomous entity with volition.
The premise is incorrect, and so are all the questions based
on that premise. If this is clearly apperceived, the appercep-
tion itself amounts to JUST BEING.
CHAPTER 9

WHO WHERE WHEN? - -

I have always wondered why it is so difficult to accept

the basic teachings of almost all the Masters of Advaita
philosophy that the individual entity as such is wholly il-
lusory.

Who is this "I" who has always pondered and wondered

upon the problem?

I had a feeling you might ask that!

I am sorry, but it does seem to be a good point for an in-

vestigation or an exploration. When I first found Nisarga-
datta Maharaj doing it, I used to feel so terribly frustrated,
but very soon I could see clearly that he was neither shirk-
ing the question nor trying to sidetrack me and confuse the
issue. What he was doing was putting the matter into per-
spective at the very start, so that the dialogue would remain
on an impersonal level and not turn into an intellectual de-
bate.

In other words, the individual entity is pushed back

into thebackground where it belongs, being only an illu-
sion.

Quite so. That is also the reason why Maharaj repeatedly

warned his listeners not to listen to him as one individual to
another.

What exactly did he mean?

What he meant is that words, because of their inherent

limitation, can hardly ever point at the Absolute when they

are heard and interpreted in the context of phenomenal du-
 62 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

ality.The confusion becomes confounded when the words

are not apprehended on the very firm basis that the listener
is not what he thinks he is but an utterly unsubstantial il-

lusory dream figure.

But is it really possible to do so?

Is it not possible, if you are interested in music, to listen

to a performance without the intrusion of the individual
listener - when the music and the listening are without any
separation? But our conditioning is so powerful that even
when the subject of our consideration is the non-existence
of a self, our thoughts tend to get expressed in a manner that
the sentient being as a medium is envisaged as having ob-
jective existence. It is for this reason that Nisargadatta
Maharaj so often startled the questioner with a counter ques-
tion: "Who wants to know?" or, "Who is asking this ques-
tion?" Indeed, the very frustration this counter-question
produced in the questioner was the proof that the dialogue
was being based from the viewpoint of the individual as an
objective entity!

can see this very clearly. Our conditioning is such that

I

whenever anything happens our immediate reaction is the

query "who" or "whom" in regard to the occurrence. We
do not accept an event on its own as just an event.

That is correct. As soon as one sees a book or a book is

discussed, the query rises, "who has written the book?" If

one sees a painting, instead of perceiving it on its own merit,

we want to know who did it? What is more, our judgement
on it would, consciously or unconsciously, be based on the
reputation and standing of the painter.

But surely the painter is not irrelevant to the painting.

 WHO WHERE- WHEN?
- 63

Is that really so? We are so used to thinking that nothing

can happen without a "who" that does it, or a "whom" it af-

fects, that we are inclined to forget that all events are move-
ments in consciousness within the totality of functioning
which is the active aspect (in time) of the totality of the
manifestation (in space). We forget that all human beings are
merely psychosomatic mechanisms through which the
manifestation and its functioning is perceived and cognized.
All Masters have repeatedly asseverated in many differ-
ent ways, in many different contexts, that there really is no
such thing as a separate individual.

That there cannot be a separate individual is the very

basis of all non-dualistic teaching and this is surely
known by every seeker of the truth. Where does the diffi-
culty lie?

Intellectually and high degree of

dialectically a fairly
comprehension of this basic fact is certainly not uncommon,
but the fact of the matter is that such comprehension rarely
reaches the degree of apprehension or apperception which
denotes experiencing of the Teaching. This is because those >
who are satisfied with the relative intellectual under-
standing are not prepared - one might say, are afraid - to ac-
cept the total annihilation of their precious selves. They can ^
accept that the other selves are illusory but they cannot ac- ;

cept that their own identity is also wholly illusory. Their

sincerity would rarely be in question. Indeed, they would
often be found working very hard at the various methods
and techniques they have acquired from various sources
(and they are continually searching for more). They don't re-
alize that all methods and techniques are utterly useless un-
less they give up the illusion that they themselves are N

autonomous entities, with volition and choice, working

towards a goal.
 64 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

What really happens after apperception that all phe-

nomena are appearance only? In other words, after the
"who", the identification with "me" as an object, is
demolished?

After apperception, obviously the phenomenal "who" as

an appearance does not disappear (until death), nor does the
phenomenal universe disappear. But what does happen is
that the liberation, as a consequence of the dis-identification,
is not only from "who" but also from "where" and "when",

because for the phenomenal "subject", having known at last

what he has always been, and what the phenomenal manife-
station has always been, these terms are all meaningless. He,
however, continues to use them as "others" do - the "others"
being as meaningless - just as he uses the term "the sun rises
(or sets)" which is meaningless but useful for communica-
tion with others.

So in fact there never has been a "who".

No, from the beginning there never could have been a

single "who". The "who", totally absent noumenally, has al-
ways been the ubiquitous "who" phenomenally. The "who",
the asker of the question, is both the seeker and the sought.
CHAPTER 10
WHAT HE THINKS OF ME
Hello, you are beaming like a lamp. What's up?

Well, have you seen the latest copy of the Times? No?
Don't bother. I have a copy right here. Page 5.

Ah, here we are. A photograph of you, a nice write up

chap a friend of yours?
too. Is this

He is now! Why are you smiling like that?

Was I? Like what?

Like you have something up your sleeve. Like the cat

who ate the canary.

Oh, well. I was just thinking about "that bastard" who

wrote a nasty piece about your book in some "rag" a few
days ago.

Are you making fun of me? Wouldn't you be upset if

someone said something rotten about you?

Of course not. Why should be upset about a brickbat
I

thrown at an image in someone else's (aspect of) mind. It's

entirely his own creationand quite unrelated to the phenom-
enon ("me") to which the image is attached. In your own
case, a few days ago someone threw a brickbat at an image
of you in his mind. Today, someone else threw a bouquet at
an image in his mind. The phenomenon, that is "you", has
remained the same while the images in mind have been
different.

How do you mean "images in mind"?

66 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Dualistic discrimination in the process of functioning as

"self" and "other". It's a universally condemned process,
also known variously (in non-dualistic teaching like Ad-
vaita and Tao) as discrimination, false thought, objective
seeing, etc.. It is the very mechanism of "bondage".

In other words, objectifying a purely subjective con-

cept - creating an effigy and then throwing bouquets or
brickbats at it.

That is well said. It should be remembered, however, that

the understanding itself would preclude all "saying" - there
is no need at all to express what is understood. It can only

make the truth untrue.

I can buy that. But the theory aside, which is the real

you - the one that deserves the bouquet or the brickbat?

You have missed could be not just one or the
the point. I

other, but a host of others as others might see "me".

You really are serious aren't you? This is not just theory
for you, but actual fact .

Look. As "I", I am precisely nothing - no thing. I appear

as whatever I am perceived to be. And this is as much "fact"

as anything in phenomenal manifestation could be said to
be. How could "I" be anything but I AM?

Let's be practical. Am I to understand that you have no

personal identity, no personality at all? How can you live
without one?Surely, you yourself must know what you
are, even if someone else may not.
I'm not trying to be funny or clever. See for yourself. Why
should my perceptual and conceptual interpretation of my
appearance (which is "me") be any more valid or invalid,
phenomenally, than that of any one else's. My own could
well be perhaps a little more flattering and exaggerated, but
certainly equally imaginary!
 WHAT HE THINKS OF ME 67

I would still like an answer. I am not just superficially

curious. I am seriously curious.
I have so many "selves" and while some of them may be

"good" - gentle, kind and noble many others would be

"bad" - wild, cruel and obnoxious. Again, let me assure you,
I am not being flippant. Actually the range of our "selves"

in this waking-dream is very much more inhibited than in

our sleeping dreams. In our dreams we accept ourselves for
whatever we appear to be, and it is only in retrospect that
we judge ourselves according to the "waking" standards.
You mean it is in this spirit of relativism that we should
view what other people think of us?

Would not anything else be absurd? Whatever people

think of me is their thought, visualized in their own aspect

of the split-mind known as "memory". It is their mnemonic

impression, which has nothing to do with me, with what I

am or what I am not.
I find you amazing.
All that your amazement shows is that my appearance in
your mind is not very flattering if you believed that I would
care about what happens in a split-mind!

Phenomenally, then, are we nothing other than what is

perceived?

Perceived and conceived: a concept. Our supposed

-

"self" is what "others" conceive; and of course "others"

must include our own self-conceiving because each of us is
an "other" supposed by a supposed "self". The point is that
both the "self" and the "other" do not exist apart from being
merely the mechanism of manifestation in duality as sub-
ject/object.

Then what are we?

 68 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Is it not obvious? We are, very simply, "I", eternally un-

w aware of what I-ness is.

What you say seems so clear and so obvious that it's dif-
ficult to see how it could be otherwise. As appearances we
can only be concepts in the split-mind, whether "ours" or
those of apparent "others".

How could it be otherwise? Sages, men of vision, have

been saying so for thousands of years.

And yet people have not believed that!

The sages did not ask people to believe anything. Belief
is also a concept. They merely pointed to the truth.

But how are "selves" supposed to act?

"Supposed to act"? How can an appearance be supposed
to act?This was by the sages thousands of
also told to us
years ago, though of course in words and terms prevalent
in their times. Therefore perhaps the need for books like this
one. Anyway, the "selves" do not "act" - they appear to react
to stimuli from outside, as images in mind.

What precisely is the manner in which such apparent

reaction takes place?

What they appear to do is conceptual interpretation of

such reacting, an apparent functioning that we call our
"living".

But surely, if the "selves" are merely appearances in

consciousness, images in the split-mind, there must be
something behind them. What is that?

This is the real trouble. I mean, trying to put into words

\ something that is indescribable turns it into a concept. Any-
t\\ way, we may try to apperceive it by thinking of it as a
 WHAT HE THINKS OF ME 69

functioning which is spontaneous acting without any re- £ >

acting.That is the Taoist way of looking at it, and as good as

any, and better than most.

How would you explain it?

might perhaps say that THAT is transcendent noumenal-
I

ity which is immanent as phenomenality (otherwise phe-

nomenality would have no "substance"), objectifying what
it is as what we appear to be through a process of dualistic

manifestation in the conceptual extension of the media

known as "space" and "time".
Where do we come in, in this functioning?

"We" WHAT-WE-ARE, being all that is, can never be out

as
of any functioning. As an appearance in the mind, we are
nothing; As WHAT-WE-ARE, we are everything. Noumenon
and phenomenon are not two, nor are they different. As I
said, what they are is transcendence phenomenally and im-
manence noumenally.
CHAPTER 11
WHO IS THE PERCEIVER
WHO PERCEIVES?
there a single factor that can be isolated as the one
Is
that prevents the apperceiving of our true nature?

Yes there is. In fact, Nisargadatta Maharaj gave the an-

swer at one of his talks. The single factor that comes in the
way of apperception is the incorrigible habit of viewing
everything - every event - from the point of view of a "who"
as the pseudo-subject and the "what" as the object, with a
succession of "whom", "when", "where" and "why". But ,

then, this habit unfortunately gets strengthened by the fact

that the message of the Masters is generally conveyed
through nouns while the deepest meaning can only be sug-
gested by verbs and adverbial forms. In other words, the
Teaching is really concerned far more with functioning and
its process than with the "who" that functions or with the
"what" that results from functioning. Both the "who" and
the "what" are incidental, inferentialand almost irrelevant.
Thus for instance, "living" in the world is a dream and the
human beings are dreamed characters who, for all purposes,
are only incidental as they have no independence or voli-
tion.

You mean while the message of the Masters is that what

is objectivized, being an appearance, is not true, the lan-
guage used is itself objective?

It is necessary to keep this in mind when the Teach-

Right.
ing being conveyed in whatever form. At least to that ex-
is

tent the understanding will be more accurate. It is an

interesting point, in the context of the use of parts-of-speech
 WHO IS THE PERCEIVER WHO PERCEIVES 71

being a significant hindrance to understanding, that the

Teaching of Indian Mahayana (which moved out of India a
long time ago) is best studied in the written language of
China in which parts-of-speech practically do not exist.
There is no gainsaying the fact that Reality or Truth cannot
be expressed at all, except to the extent that it can be sug-
gested or pointed at. But to the extent that language must be
used, care has to be exercised by both the speaker and the
listener to remember that nouns point in the opposite direc-
tion and thereby create considerable misunderstanding.
Take the terms "time" and "space". They at once suggest
"objects" whereas they are relative to the functioning which
uses them as mere concepts. Also, the senses have relevance
only to the extent that they are conceptualized to serve the
functioning. The use of nouns for the senses - to an extent
the use of nouns is, of course, inevitable - throws the essen-
tial functioning in the background, and brings the "who" to

the front although "he" has no nature of "his" own. Thus,

when "perceiving" is considered, the function of perceiving
is ignored and importance is given to the "perceiver" and

the perceived object.

What is the answer to the situation?

The answer is to remember constantly the circumstances

which have brought about the situation. Focus attention on
the essential functioning and relegate the dreamed
characters, the puppets, the sentient beings to the back-
ground. It is for this reason, to show the utter illusoriness of
the "who", that Nisargadatta Maharaj often used to inter-
rupt the questioner and ask him "who wants to know".
Maharaj would thus bring the questioner's mind back from
the me-entity, "who", to the essential functioning which
should receive the total attention. In deep no
sleep, there is
manifestation, no universe, no functioning, no "who"
through whom the functioning takes place. All these arise
into existence only when consciousness arises in the form of
 72 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

the waking state. Let us see what happens during the

process of waking up in sort of "slow motion". In the early
moments after waking up, consciousness retains its imper-
sonal nature, particularly if the waking process is natural
and you are not awakened into a sense of urgency by the
alarm clock or by a person. This is particularly noticeable if
you are out in the country and the process of waking up is
allowed its normal full time. When the consciousness during
this brief period retains impersonal nature, the perceiv-
its

ing of the outer world not tainted by dualism of sub-

is

ject/object, by the sense of "me" /"not me". But very soon

the pseudo-subject "me" takes over and all perceiving is
done by the "me" Even so, if we analyzed what is perceived,
.

we would find that we can perceive "our" own hands and

feet as being within the volume that is perceived, together
with other parts of "our" bodies that would constitute ob-
jects to what is perceiving. But we cannot perceive that
"which is perceiving". This because what is doing the ac-
is

tual perceiving - "the perceiver" does not lie within that

volume or space.

Are you saying that the perceiver - what is perceiving -

is something outside the volume within which our psy-
chosomatic apparatus, our body, can be perceived?

That would be the inescapable conclusion, wouldn't it?

Since the perceiving subject perceives the volume of the per-

ceived object, what is perceiving must necessarily be outside
the objective dimensions constituting "volume". The ques-
tion then is: who or what is doing the perceiving and where
As we have seen, this that is perceiving must be "bey-
is it?

ond" the three objective dimensions of volume. In other

words, just as volume includes area, so the center of perceiv-
ing must include volume. Also, this center must be every-
where and it also must be able to perceive all the time because
the perceiving is done by some sentient being somewhere
 WHO IS THE PERCEIVER WHO PERCEIVES 73

all the time. Therefore, this subjective perceiving center can

be nothing other than infinity and intemporality - operating
here and now.

But what about the perceiver to which each human

being refers whenever he says "I perceive"?

With the analysis done so far, surely it should be possible

to locate this personal perceiving center of each human
being. If the subjective functional center - the infinity and in-
temporality - is the "I-I", surely the objective operational
center must be the tri-dimensional psychosomatic mecha-
nism with which each human being is identified as "me". In
other words, that subjective extra-dimensional center, name-
less and formless, is what we ARE as "I", while this objective
tri-dimensional center - the nama-rupa (name and form) - is
what we appear to be as "me" in space-time.

You mean what is phenomenally present is the psycho-

somatic apparatus representing "me" as the objective
operating center, while what is phenomenally absent - be-
cause it is formless - is the subjective functional center that
is eternal PRESENCE as the infinite and intemporal "I-I".

That is neatly expressed. Now all that is needed is the in-

stantaneous apperception of it, without the need to express
it.
CHAPTER 12
TRUE PERCEIVING

One comes across the words "true perceiving" quite

often. What precisely are they intended to convey?

True perceiving means perceiving phenomenality as

such - and therefore the phenomenal objects - after apper-
ceiving the identity of phenomenality and noumenality.
Phenomenality is merely the extension of noumenality in
space and time - they are not two. Noumenon has objectified
itself into phenomenality so that it may be perceivable in

space-time duality True perceiving is therefore the perceiv-

ing of the true identity of subject and object. True perceiving
is perceiving that there is factually no perceiver/ perceived

relation, only the function of perceive-ING.

True perceiving then would mean perceiving from the

viewpoint of the subjective functional center and not from
the viewpoint of the objective operational center.

Right. While the objective operational center is repre-

sented by the tri-dimensional psychosomatic appearance,
the subjective center is formless, phenomenally absent, be-
cause phenomenal appearance in space-time would make it
an object. The subjective center is present everywhere, all the
time, and no "where", at no "time", because it is beyond
space and time. It is infinity and intemporality - present
HERE and NOW throughout eternity. In brief, true perceiving
is perceiving that any perceiving between one sentient being

and another can only be false perceiving because both are

objects.

False perceiving?
 TRUE PERCEIVING 75

The perceiving usually done by human beings is neces-

sarily false because both the supposed subject and the per-
ceived object are objects, appearances in consciousness. The
pseudo-subject himself becomes an object when he is per-
ceived by another object posing as the pseudo-subject. And
when consciousness is absent, as in deep sleep or under
sedation, there cannot be any perceiving in this sense even
though the pseudo-subject exists. In fact all perceiving, as
imagined by human beings is false perceiving. True perceiv-
ing is really non-perceiving, the perceiving that is beyond
U
the body and thought. When there is true perceiving (con-
sciousness perceiving the manifestation within itself), what
can there be to perceive? The entire manifestation is only the
objective expression of the one subject. Perceiving this is true
perceiving - the transcendence of the subject/ object dual-
ism.
Nisargadatta Maharaj was once asked if what he saw in
the world was different from what other people saw. His an-
swer was that he saw the same things but the way of seeing
was totally different. He did not see the "other people" as
other people!
That is as accurate an answer as could be expected from
Maharaj.

But what did the answer really mean? He did not ex-
plain further.

Would he not have explained further if he thought it nec-

essary?He must have considered that the explanation
should really present itself if meditated upon.

Perhaps we could meditate upon it now in the form of

the talk that is now going on.
Maharaj may not have given a detailed explanation, but
he did give a hint then, when he suggested that the ques-
tioner should look into the two mirrors in the room. Now
suppose there are two, three or more mirrors at different an-
 .

76 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

gles before you. There would be several images in the mir-

rors but only one you. All movements of the images would
be controlled by you, the images themselves would have no
volition. Now also suppose you could bestow sentience in
the mirror images so that they could "perceive" one another.
Is it not clear that the perceiving of one another by the im-
ages, each as a pseudo-subject with the others as objects,
would be false perceiving?True perceiving is only that per-
ceiving done by the subjective center outside the mirrors,
the true subject. In fact, this true perceiving is really no-per-
ceiving because all there is, is the ONE subject without any
objects. If the subject could see another object that has inde-
pendent existence, the subject himself would be the object!
True perceiving is, therefore, the turning back of the split-
mind from outward objectifying (which is what perceiving
in dualism means), inward, to its wholeness or back to non-
objectivity from which arises the objectivity.

The simile of the mirror gives rise to various difficul-

ties. .

Of course it does. And that is why the Masters didn't give

similes recklessly. Each simile must be accepted only from
the particular point that it is expected to illustrate. In any

case, all similes can themselves only be objectifications. The

whole purpose of an analogy is to turn the split-mind from
objectifying and thus to return it to its true wholeness. If this
is not firmly kept in mind, the purpose of the analogy would

be defeated. Thus the classic analogy of the clay and the pot
created out of the clay (the pot is only clay given a particu-
lar shape) is basically imperfect because it means repre-
senting, through objective images, that which is formless!
Similarly, a discussion about whether any object, includ-
ing the human body, is solid or not is really begging the ques-
tion, because there is in fact no object but only an appearance
in consciousness, and discussing a particular quality (or the
 TRUE PERCEIVING 77

absence of it) in an object could quite easily defeat the pur-

pose because of the implication that there exists an object as
such.
True perceiving means perceiving the illusoriness of the
pseudo-subject, the sole factor which prevents our BEING
The moment this true perceiving, this
that subjective unicity.
understanding becomes spontaneous, we would be ex-
periencing the Teaching, because then, in the words of the
great Chinese sage Shen-hui, we would be having "silent
identification with non- being".

Could you sum it up in one sentence?

How about, "true perceiving is a noumenal function in

which there is no thing to perceive and no thing that per-
ceives"?

Who am I to argue?!
CHAPTER 13
THE ESSENCE OF
UNDERSTANDING

Am I right in thinking that an essential part of the

Teaching is that everything that we can perceive and cog-

nize can have no existence other than what appears to exist
in "mind", which itself is the content of consciousness?
Well, what are you waiting for?

I thought you were going to draw some conclusions from

what you said, which is obviously correct.

I had hoped that in your own inimitable way, you

would take up my point and take off on an exploratory trip

over the intricacies of truth.

No need did strike me that your opening

for flattery. It

statement had a rather obvious corollary, but I was hoping

it would be you who would undertake the exploratory trip.

And incidentally, truth is perhaps the most obvious thing

one could find - or not find- and any intricacies in the un-
derstanding of it would undoubtedly be of our own making
through our incorrigible habit of conceptualizing. If we but
stopped conceptualizing, truth would be staring us in the
face.

I can see that that makes sense. But what was this ob-

vious corollary to which you referred?

apperceived that whatever is perceived is only an

If it is

appearance in consciousness (mind), then that apperception

must comport the apperception that consciousness cannot
have any independent existence either.

Why is that?
 THE ESSENCE OF UNDERSTANDING 79

For the simple reason that mind-consciousness merely

symbolizes what we ourselves ARE; we (as the perceivING)
cannot see it as an object, independent of that which is per-
ceiving. The eye can see something else but cannot see itself
(without a mirror); the tongue can taste something but can-
not taste itself; the dagger can stab something but cannot
stab itself.

You mean "we" are consciousness, and the supposed

"mind". But then why are objects, as appearances in con-
sciousness, created at all?

If you mean why do "we" (as consciousness) create ob-

the answer is that "we" are playing a game, lila,
jects at all,
wherein the various objects with nama-rupa (name and form)
come into mutual relationship. If you mean how do "we"
create the objects - the mechanism - the answer is that ob-
jects are created when thinking or conceptualizing goes on,
on the basis of the "me" against the "other". The "me" in-
cludes friends in a friendly "circle", which expands and con-
tracts, and alters its shape according to the changing
circumstances. The "other" refer to the foes in the rest of the
world!

In other words, conceptualizing turns the mind outward

and the mind then divides itself into a duality of sub-
ject/object and creates objects.

What means is that consciousness - mind,

this actually
which (which as noumenon is all I can be) creates, as
is "I"

an apparent object, something other than I, so that the mind

is thus split into me-subject and you-object, "self" and

"other". But the significant factor in this mechanism, that is

often lost sight of, is the fact that in spite of the division of
the mind into me-subject and you-object, "I" as the noumenal
subject always remains as "J", devoid of all objective existence
and attributes. The lila comes into being because each sen-
tient object regards itself as the "me-subject" and the others
 80 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

as the "you-object". Thus "we" are all apparent objects of

what we really ARE -"I" noumenon. This situation can be
conceived as one single source of light reflected in "ten thou-
sand" mirrors providing infinite variety according to the
formation of each mirror and its respective placement.

So the process of objectifying necessitates the splitting

of the "mind" notionally (consciousness as "I" remains
eternally whole) into relative duality of contrasting ele-
ments of subject/object.

The contrasting elements are not merely subject /object

which are the basic pair, but all the variable pairs of interre-
lated opposing concepts like positive and negative, pleasure
and pain, love and hate. This is the motivation, the search
for pleasure and "love" to the exclusion of the interrelated
opposites, which is the cause of the supposed bondage.

But what is it that prevents all the "me-subjects" from

realizing their true nature as "I"?

What is the medium without which the appearances in

consciousness that we are would not be perceivable and
cognizable? In order to be perceivable and cognizable, these
images have to have "volume", and this volume (form or
rupa), extended in "space" must have a minimum duration
(which we call "time") in which it may become perceivable
and cognizable.

This seems fairly elementary.

The truth is very much elementary - basic and simple and

rather obvious. It is precisely for this reason that it is over-
looked.Anyway, it is, as you said, elementary that the space-
time element is merely a conceptual medium in which
objects can appear. But
it is not realized that this space-time

element obviously not something objective to ourselves

is

as phenomenal objects. Space-time is nothing independent

to which we are "bound" but only a sort of mechanical ex-
 .

THE ESSENCE OF UNDERSTANDING 81

tension that renders us objectively perceptible to subjective

perceiving. It is needless to add that since we are all objects,
the perceiving must necessarily be in the totally different dimen-
sion of subjectivity

I am sorry but I still don't see the point.

Our notion of being in bondage and therefore needing
-

liberation - is very illusion that we are independent

just this
entities subjected to duration or time or temporality. It is this
apparent temporality which enables the notion of an inde-
pendent entity not only to exist but to endure. If the supposed
"me"s did not appear to last - if they were not temporal -
would they not be intemporal, which is what I AM, intem-
porality, whoever says it?

What we have been told by Nisargadatta Maharaj - and

other Masters - is that liberation exists in the demolition
of the illusion of an independent "me". Has anything been
said about duration or temporality?

Do you
not remember the advice repeatedly given by
Maharaj, that mere hearing by the ears is not enough, that
there must be listening by the mind and the heart? And the
repeated complaints from people that they seem to compre-
hend the Teaching at some point of time but they lose it
" thereafter". The point is that even if we could remove the
notion of "me" for a moment and we do this quite often - its
enduring in time remains, and it comes back again and
again. We cannot destroy our "me"-ness without destroying
its duration - the two concepts are inseparable, two aspects
of the same notion.

The logical question that follows is: how do we do that?

How do we remove the "me" concept and its duration alto-
gether?
 82 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

That is just it. In what we are discussing, logic and dia-

lectics do not fare so well because they find themselves out
of their depth. Also I am reminded of Maharaj's usual query:
Who is asking the question? Who is to "do" anything? The
only problem is to apperceive that "time" is not only not
something objective to "ourselves" but can only be an intrin-
sic element of what we appear to be as phenomenal objects
in consciousness - mind. There is no need to make any effort
to recover our intemporality which we, as "I", have never
lost. What is to be apperceived is the basic and fundamen-

tal fact that space-time is a mere concept that enables phe-

nomenal manifestation to take place, and that as "I" - which
is all that we could all possibly be - we ARE infinity and in-

temporality. Apperceiving this is experiencing the Teaching.

"We" can only experience what we are as "I", and the fact
that "we" seem to experience the contrasting elements like
pleasure and pain is the ineluctable effect of duality, of
which the concept "we" is an intrinsic part. We can truly ex-
perience only what we ARE as "I" - there is absolutely noth-
ing else to be experienced. And the understanding, the
apperceiving, is itself the doing, the experiencing.

In other words, escape from the subjugation of relative

it, by apper-
duality consists in identifying ourselves with
ceiving that it is what we are subjectively.

Quite so. With the recognition of temporality as being not

external to ourselves, we also realize that temporality and
intemporality are inseparable as the twin aspects of what we
are - the one appearing in movement and the other static.
This is what Nisargadatta Maharaj wanted us to realize
when he said "I am time". We all are. We are intemporal as
"time" (or duration) and we are time as "intemporality".
CHAPTER 14
IDENTIFICATION AND
DISIDENTIFICATION

Nisargadatta Maharaj used to refer to the manifested

universe as the child of a barren woman because the en-
tire manifestation was a concept, an illusion. If this is
clearly perceived, there should be no question of
"bondage".

Quite correct. But by whom will this be perceived? Is this

to be perceived by the conceptual subject that regards what
it is as an object? If so, it means that one phenomenon as the

conceptual subject regards the rest of the universe as an il-

lusion - it excludes itself from the totality of this illusion!
What is necessary is the total abolition of any kind of entiti-
fication whatever.

Do you mean by that the disidentif ication of an existing

identification?

Not exactly. While the term "disidentification" certainly

conveys more appropriately and more accurately what is in-
ferred by the term "enlightenment" or "awakening", it is re-
ally not satisfactory inasmuch as "disidentification"
presupposes "identification" of one objective entity with
another, apart from the implied possibility of "re-identifica-
tion" with a third object. And this is incompatible with the
idea of the annihilation of entitification as such.
The basic element in the phenomenal condition called
"bondage" is the functioning of the split-mind in the context
of space-time. In everything that the conceptual subject
it,

"itself", appears like an object that other

perceives, including
phenomenal objects cognize by its name and form (nama-
 84 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

rupa) and which is also perceptible (at least partially) to "it-

self and that which it regards as "itself". This is the sup-

posed "identification". The apprehension that this is not so,
the understanding that "perceiving", like all forms of sen-
tience, is in fact a space-time objectivization of the indivis-
ible condition of "being conscious" (consciousness), of what
Maharaj called "knowingness" (janatepan) is the supposed
"disidentification". Maharaj often expressed wonderment
that this truly simple fact should be so difficult to apperceive
because of the profound conditioning of may a.

"Maya" being the multiplication of objects through the

splitting of the mind into subject/object?

Correct. This basic error can be rectified by the apprehen-

sion that the multiplication of objects does not necessarily
imply division of consciousness. Duality is merely the me-
dium through which manifestation takes place. "Dualism"
which creates the "me" and the "other" is a corruption of
duality. In other words, apparent subjectivity is somewhat
like one's image reflected in a number of mirrors, varied in
reception according to the form, quality and situation of
each mirror. Thus seen, the entitification of phenomenal sub-
ject disappears and the subject, even regarded as singular, is
apperceived as noumenon and everything sensorially per-
ceptible is apperceived as phenomena. No subjective element
remains phenomenally at all. This apperceiving means ex-
periencing the Teaching.

Is that all there is to it?

"We" can, for all practical purposes, assume that this is

all there is to it.

I sense impending trouble!

Not really. All I would add is the fact that all that is said
- here or anywhere, now or at any time - can only be concep-
tual. What is referred to as consciousness or the whole-mind
 IDENTIFICATION AND DISIDENTIFICATION 85

or sentienceis only a concept but it is immensely helpful as

asymbol for what we ARE. What we ARE, we can only BE -

and then there would be no need for any "pointing" by any-
body for anybody Being without the slightest touch of
objectivity, what it is can only truly be apperceived as "I",
always the subject of all objects cognized.

Perhaps that explains to a certain extent what Nisarga-

datta Maharaj meant when he said, "I must be present
before anything can happen".

In this instance as in others, a certain amount of misun-

derstanding used to arise in spite of the repeated reminders
from Maharaj that the listeners must not listen to him as one
individual entity to another. Obviously Maharaj meant the
subjective, noumenal "I", whereas most listeners would un-
derstand Maharaj's "I" to mean the "me" that they have in
mind when they themselves use the first person singular.
Identification occurs when the "I" becomes an object which
is identified with a phenomenon: nominative "I" becomes

the accusative "me", with the false dialectical process.

Dialectically, "I" must necessarily always be a singular
that cannot in any circumstances have plurality. The accusa-
tive of "I" can never be "me" because that would not only
be self contradictory but meaningless. As subject there can
only be "I", whoever says it: as subject "you" is always I; as
an object I am always "you". That the objective personifica-
tion of the subjective "I" has not taken place in the child (be-
cause conditioning has not yet taken place), is seen when the
child almost always says "Ravi is hungry", not "I am hun-
gry". "I" can only be subject in all circumstances. The point
in Maharaj's statement "I must be there, whatever happens"
should now be clear. Whatever "happens" is in phenome-
nality in which "I" is immanent, but there is no "I" to "do"
anything. It is in this sense too that Maharaj used to say "I
am not, but the apparent universe is my self".
Does this mean that nothing can appear to be done?
 86 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

On the contrary, the apparent universe depends entirely

on "action". But such action cannot be attributed to any act-
er.

It is in fact an apparent functioning which we know as

our "living", a functioning that occurs, as movement in con-

sciousness, in a media known as space-time.

In other words, all functioning is in spite of us, not be-

cause of us?

As Maharaj has said some time it is always I

or another,
that see, but cannot see my seeing;always I that hear,
it is

but cannot hear my hearing; I taste but cannot taste my tast-

ing; I smell but cannot smell my smelling; I touch but can-
not feel my touching. Nor can I cognize any cognizing of any
part of this functioning.

You mean everything happens only in consciousness,

only in my mind as the apparent perceiver?
"Your" mind is only apparently yours. It is not "yours"
as such but what you are. If you become conscious of some-
thing, then you become the subject and that something be-
comes the object. The basis of consciousness being duality,
this subject /object relationship becomes a perpetual regres-
sion in duality, which can stop only when duality ends in
unicity. It is for this reason that what-you-are, and what-I-
am, as pure cannot be aware.
subjectivity, We can only be
awareness, not aware of the awareness.
CHAPTER 15
THE PERPETUAL
PROBLEM
In the silence of the mind, when the mind is quiet, the
first stirring gives rise to the persistent question: what
does all this manifestation, in which we all mutually ap-
pear, mean? And where does it spring from?

The persistence is due to the fact that consciousness,

which has fallaciously identified itself with the individual
psychosomatic apparatus as the "me", is constantly seeking
its own source. And the joke, as Nisargadatta Maharaj used

to say, is that all there is, is consciousness; therefore, what

consciousness is seeking as its source is itself! The search
goes on until there is apperception that consciousness is the
"I" awareness that cannot be aware of itself because aware-
ness knows no self of which it could be aware. Divided and
split into cognizing subject/ cognized objects, I cognizes
every conceptual thing that can be cognized except that
which is cognizing. That which is cognizing is not conceiv-
able since it is no thing; and it is no thing since it is not con-
ceivable!

This is so simple, is that all there is?

It is simple when there is apperception - apperception

that that which I am (which is all that we are) is the "source-
inconceivable", sheer inconceivability, the inability to con-
ceive what am, not merely the interconnected opposites
I

"conceiving" and "non- conceiving" - the inconceivability

which should reveal that the sought is the seeker and the
seeking itself.
 88 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

In view of the inconceivability, how can there be any

understanding?

How can "I" be known? I cannot. How can "I" be ex-

perienced? I cannot. Only "God", only "Guru" , can be ex-
perienced. Why?Because He is my concept, my object. But,
when conceptualizing is in abeyance - the mind is fasting -
and time and space are also in abeyance together with all
concepts, I AM all that you are as my "self"; how can I have
any other?
When the shadow of the ultimate object has disappeared,
leaving nothing sensorially perceptible to be found, what
then remains is what I am (and what you are). When space-
time is in abeyance, and the entire phenomenal universe has
ceased to appear, all that remains is the Ground, the Sub-
stance, the Source, That which was perceiving the vanished
universe when space-time was conceptually present - the
conceptual object of the persistent conceptual search: the
noumenal "I", pure subjectivity, Awareness not aware of
awareness.

I found that the earlier talk we had was on a rather ab-

stract level. Perhaps we could continue that talk in more
concrete terms.

The whole problem is that the total phenomenal universe

is an appearance in consciousness, without any inde-
pendent substance to separate it from consciousness. And
consciousness, in which "we" all mutually appear as part of
that apparent universe (and at the same time perceive and
cognize the universe as such) is what we ARE, and all that we
are. Add to this the fact that consciousness - here and now -
is not anything in itself. To objectivize it and make an image

of it in the mind (which is just the content of consciousness)

would in effect mean making an image of that which is it-

self making the image of the apparent phenomenal universe
(of which we ourselves are a part). Do you not see the ab-
surdity of the whole thing - an absurdity which would ren-
der its apprehension forever impossible? It is in this sense
 ;

THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM 89

that Nisargadatta Maharaj would sometimes say that un- >

derstanding of that is impossible: how can you understand ))

That which is itself UNDERSTANDING - That which we ARE?

What then do we do? How do we proceed?

The understanding of this position itself leaves the way
open for the solution, if it can be called that at all. The whole
point is that "we" are not different from "consciousness"
and therefore we cannot "prebend" it; also "we" cannot be
"integrated" into it because we have never been disinte-
grated from it. Briefly then, as long as the problem is viewed
in relative terms, we can never understand what conscious-
ness is.

Don't you see the obvious answer? It is staring you right

in the face - or perhaps one should say, it was staring you in

the face that you had before you were born!

wish you wouldn't talk in riddles. As far as I can see,
I

allyou have done is point to the impasse. There's a stale-

mate inherent in the problem.
That's just The stalemate inherent in the problem
it.

shows that the problem has been misconceived. The appre-

hension of the problem itself provides the answer. When we
are what we ARE - and have eternally been - do we need to
ask what we are? Do we need to be told what that is? Do we
need to name it or describe it? Does light need to know what
it is? Does electricity need to know what it is? If you were

the only human being in the world, would there by any need
for you to know that you were a "human being"? The prob-
lem is asked in a mind that is split into subject /object. When
we want to understand, we as subject want to understand
something as an object. How can the split-mind know the
whole mind? Does this not explain why Maharaj repeatedly
said, "understand-ING is all. JUST BE. "?
CHAPTER 16
REVERSING INTO THE
FUTURE

I meant ask you but never got round to it. I have a

to
Maharaj once or twice
distinct feeling that Nisargadatta
said that many of our problems would never arise if we
"reversed into the future".

You are quite right. He did say it and that statement was
one of those which seemed to have an almost physical effect
on me, of being stunned.

Was it which Maharaj could have made

a statement
merely in order impress on his listeners something he
to
had said earlier, or did it have a separate significance alto-
gether? I know he sometimes used the English word
"reverse" in his talks.

Quite right. He often used "reverse" in the sense of look-

ing back into time, into the past, for instance when he said,
"Reverse. What were you a hundred years ago?" But in this
instance he used the word deliberately - he was particular
about the words he used, Marathi words of course - to mean
that weshould reverse or walk backwards into the future.
He noticed the powerful impact of that sentence on me, and
without a break in the flow of his words, he made me a
questioning gesture with his hand. I made an answering ges-
ture of a namaskar, joining my palms together and bending
my head in respectful gratitude.
What did the phrase signify? I was almost certain I had
got it wrong.
 REVERSING INTO THE FUTURE 91

What he did was to point outwith one powerful phrase

the utter futility of what we consider as our volitional ac-
tions. We think in terms of doing something or refraining
from doing something with the intention that a subsequent
event may or may not occur. This view is based on the mis-
conception that the future depends on our volitional actions
today. It is this false premise of autonomy and the retribu-
tion or reward, which are the basis of volitional ethics, that
make for the chains of our supposed bondage.
Did Maharaj then imply that we should maintain a
fatalistic attitude towards the future?

Maharaj's counterquestion would have been: "who" is

asking the question, and who "we" that seems to be
is this

concerned? Can we as mere phenomenal objects, appear-

ances in consciousness, have any attitude, whether purpose-
ful or fatalistic? If we looked, without judgement or
prejudice, at the panorama would we
of events in the past,
not come to the inescapable conclusion that the events had
a distinct ineluctability about them? Would we not come to
the inevitable conclusion that the volition we thought at the
time to have exercised was a misconception which only
brought about a false sense of achievement or a false feeling
of frustration, depending on whether the events turned out
to be "acceptable" or not? This is what Maharaj meant by re-
versing into the future, whereby the looking in the wrong
direction would be abandoned, and looking into the future
would not be seen fatalistically but with confidence regard-
ing whatever the future might bring. Noumenally, what we
were a hundred years ago - and which we ARE and have al-
ways been - would be totally unconcerned with past or fu-
ture. Phenomenally, the understanding of the true position
would substantially reduce the fear or anxiety concerning
the future events, and bring about an attitude of cooperating
with and bringing ourselves in accord with what the future
might bring.
 92 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

What you say seems so abundantly clear and logical.

Why do we find it so difficult to envisage this?
The reason simply is that our way of thinking has become
habitual. Giving up the wrong direction of looking - a sud-
den jolt by Maharaj was a great help - breaks down the con-
ditioned thinking that creates the supposed bondage.
Reversing into the future makes us give up conceptualizing
and clearly apperceive that from the viewpoint of the il-
lusory individual, problems will never cease but, from the
viewpoint of the totality of functioning that we are, prob-
lems can never arise.

What precisely do you mean by the wrong direction of

looking?

Look at it this way. If we have placed a bet and we lose,

according to our habitual way of looking we would consider
that we lost the money because we placed a bet. We do not
even consider the possibility of the viewpoint that the plac-
ing of the bet and the result - either winning or losing - could
be one single event so that it could well be considered that
the bet was placed only because there had to be winning or
losing. It is common experience that one makes an invest-
ment on the spur of the moment, for whatever reason, when
one had really no prior "intention" of doing so. Our reaction
to the result of the investment is one of gratification in our
"judgement" if it is fruitful, and of frustration if otherwise.
But it would not ordinarily strike us that seeing the invest-
ment as the cause, and the profit or loss as the result, is a
wrong way of looking at what is one connected event. Our
habitual way of looking based on the illusory concept of
is

volition that seems to compel us to break up an event into

cause and effect.

Could you really apply this principle to life in general?

 REVERSING INTO THE FUTURE 93

Why not? Have you ever considered why living things

eat and reproduce? How much "volition" is concerned in
either? Living things eat and reproduce so that living may
go on. you did not eat, you would starve and die, and the
If

animating element would disappear from the body So, is

living the reason for the eating and the reproduction, or is it
vice versa - or one functioning in Totality? Which
is it really
comes first - and the reproducing, the
the living or the eating
egg or the chicken, the acorn or the oak? And which is the
cause and which the effect? No problems would arise if we
would but see things as the totality of manifestation, and
events as the totality of functioning. The past-present-future
is merely the conceptual duration in which the functioning

as a whole can take place - as living, as Ma.

Would this principle which refers to "living" also apply

to dying?

Would it not? Think it out for yourself.

You mean, if we lived into the future with a sense of

serenity by putting down the ghost of the past, our dying
like our living would be infinitely more serene.

Then, instead of believing that our past indicates that we

act in a particular way so that our future would turn out the
way we want it to, we shall believe that we would act in a
particular way so that everything may turn out as it is due
to be.

Would not this also presuppose volition?

Volition would then be absent inasmuch as what would
be present would be humility (as the absence of anyone to
be proud) and relinquishment or resignation (as the absence
of anyone to renounce).

Expressed otherwise, you mean that "time" should be

seen not as having an objective existence, but merely as an
aspect of WHAT-WE-ARE. .
 94 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Indeed so. Temporality and intemporality are twin

aspects of WHAT-WE-ARE - temporality making possible all

phenomenal action while, noumenally, intemporality re-

mains static and eternal.

CHAPTER 17
IAMTHEPAIN
When Nisargadatta Maharaj was suffering from cancer,
he said several times that he was the cancer. What was the
significance of that statement?

The difficulty would not arise if you remembered that

Maharaj almost always spoke from his noumenal identity
What he meant was that what we suffer as an experience -
whatever experience, "good" or "bad" - is not something ex-
ternal to our "selves", suffered by a "me", but is itself what
we who are suffering the experience ARE.
Would you elaborate?

Maharaj repeatedly advised his listeners to make a habit

of thinking from the viewpoint ofKrishna and not Arjuna,
which meant seeing from "within", from the point of view
of what-we-are (not wha t- we- think- we-are), from the view-
point of Totality (not that of an individual). Thus perceived,
the situation is that, in order to manifest as sentience, "I"
must produce the appearance of "space" and "duration" in
which to extend Myself conceptually. In this, My space-time
universe, "I" appear divided as subject and object in order
that I-subject - may experience as object. Subject /object rela-
tion discriminates sentience in duality by such interdepend-
ent opposites as "pleasant and unpleasant", "pleasure and
pain". When My subject /object are mutually negated, what
remains is I, because sentience is what subject/ object is as
//T//

I still don't get it.

 96 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

In brief, what Maharaj meant was that it is identification

with that object which suffers experience (of cancer), which
constitutes bondage, whereas he himself, being THIS ex-
perience, is thus devoid of entity and therefore not bound.

You mean suffering is experiencing in the context of du-

ration - in relative duality - and is therefore only a concept?

That experiencing (sentience) is what we are as extended

in space-time whilst what we think we are is some "thing",

an individual "self", that possesses a body, has sentience,
and suffers experience. We must therefore not be identified
with the objective medium whereby we are experienced.

But the physical pain!

Pain as an experience relates only to the object and it is

consciousness, as sentience, which makes experiencing
possible. Reducing pain means sentience being held in abey-
ance, by whatever available means - deep sleep, sedatives,
or hatha-yoga but the fact remains that it is the object, the
-

psychosomatic apparatus, that suffers the experience

known as pain. When pain reaches a certain point of toler-
ance, the apparatus must express the pain, but this limit of
tolerance would vary from object to object. Where there is
understanding, there would be no identification either with
the pain itself or the visible expression of it. It is not that the
sage is immune to pain, but it is possible that the limit of
tolerance would be extended to a certain extent because of
the disidentification. But beyond that point the body would
certainly suffer the pain and express it vocally. The point,
however, is that the sage would not be identified with the
body, and therefore, even if the body cries out in pain, such
expression of the pain would be witnessed just like that of
any other body. The tolerance of pain would depend more
 I AM THE PAIN 97

on the natural constitution body than on the under-

of the
standing of one's true nature, and would therefore not be an
7
indication of the "lever of enlightenment!

There is also the point that physical pain would com-

prise a comparatively small percentage of suffering as the
word is ordinarily used.

Quite correct. "Suffering" is usually connected with psy-

chic suffering and bondage in metaphysical terms and its ex-
perience. What is called "experiencing" is in fact the effect
of reacting and has no existence as such. It is the sensual in-
terpretation of the reaction as pleasant or unpleasant, but the
point is that it is only conceptual and never factual.

Whenever there is experience - cognizance - the presence of

a "me" is necessarily there; and vice versa - whenever the
presence of "me" is felt, there is invariably an experience.
Therefore, there cannot be experience without "me" and no
"me" without the experience: they are inseparable.

In the ultimate analysis, since experience is a reaction

to stimulus, who is it that reacts?

The direct answer is that who or what reacts can only be

the experiencing of the experience, which is "me". When
anyone says an experience", it is nonsense because
"I suffer
the nominative "I" is pure subjectivity and an experience can

only appear to be suffered by an objective "me", the two

being inseparable. And, it is mistaken identification of "I"
with "me", of subjectivity with objectivity, which is the orig-
inal sin, the "bondage". When we say "I" in relation to the
experience, we mean "me", a sensorial mechanism through
which experience is suffered psychosomatically

What this comes to is that "I" experience as "me"

through or by means of the sensorial apparatus.
 98 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

And, it should therefore follow that "I", objectified as

"me" - the manifold "me" - am experience as such ("I AM the
pain"); and that experience is an interpretation of a sensorial
reaction to stimulus, that may be apprehended as the essen-
tial manifestation of WHAT-I-AM objectified as "me". In sum,

experience is the objective functioning of what I AM. What

this truly means, then, is that living itself is the experiencing
by the manifold "me" as the objective functioning of what I
AM. What I AM cannot be phenomenally perceived (except
as the manifold "me") because then subjectivity would have
to become an object which would then have to have a sub-
ject, and so on ad infinitum.
CHAPTER 18
VOLITIONAL EFFORT

Good afternoon. What are you doing, sitting here all

alone? Not thinking, I hope! - and I'd guess you're not day-
dreaming since you don't have the vacant look of the day-
dreamer.

No, I have not been either thinking or day-dreaming.

What I have been doing is watching that three month old in-
fant making such strenuous and intense efforts
to turn over
on its back. It strikes me not "aware" of
that the infant is

those efforts being made, much less does he "think" that

those efforts are being made by him personally as an in-
dividual.

That is rather obvious - 1 would not call it a particularly

profound thought!

On the contrary, I feel, if I may say so, that it is indeed a

profound observation. Consider the fact that that infant
started as a mere sperm cell battling against thousands of
other cells to fructify itself and finally succeeded in its ef-
forts. Is it not a humbling thought that one cell gradually
developed itself in the mother's womb, collecting various
"ingredients" until at the end of nine months it could emerge
itself into this world as a new individual appearance. Who

made all the necessary effort? And who is making that effort
now to turn over on his back? Who told him to do so? Also,
is the infant deliberately making efforts to achieve or attain
anything?
 1 00 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

It strikes me this same infant after a few years, with the

dawn of intellect, will begin to think of himself as a sep-
arate autonomous entity who has to make personal efforts
to attain or achieve personal ambitions and goals.

Right. It is an interesting situation. But perhaps the more

intriguing aspect of the matter is what is meant by effort.
When Nisargadatta Maharaj declared that "understanding
is all", what did he mean? So far as the average listener was

concerned, he felt that Maharaj was leading him up the gar-

den path, making a fool of him. This was because all the con-
ditioning over a long period of time had dinned it into him
that he should have an ambition and a goal for which he
should strive with all his might. And here was Maharaj de-
claring that all he had to do was to understand; presumably
meaning that no further effort was necessary.

Well was that not precisely what Maharaj did mean?

This is what I meant by the intriguing aspect of the mat-

ter. We can see that great efforts are being made by the in-
fant to turn over. There is also the goal - to turn over on his
back. The point is: who decided on the goal and who is
making efforts to achieve that goal? Did that sperm cell
make the tremendous effort in order to survive and fructify
itself as the goal? Who made the efforts to grow within the

womb, and thereafter? Has it not all happened without con-

scious effort, without volitional aims and ambitions? Indeed,
would you call all this non- volitional activity "efforts"? If
so, whose efforts?

What you mean then that when Maharaj declared

is
that "understanding is all", he meant that no volitional ef-
forts, either to do anything or not to do anything, would
be necessary.
 VOLITIONAL EFFORT 101

And that such action would necessarily happen by itself

as the natural consequence of that understanding, and that
such action, because of the absence of any volition, could be
called non-action.

Like the activity of the infant to grow, arising out of the

intuitional understanding or knowledge.

Right. the powerful conditioning, which has equated

It is

all activity with personal volitional effort, that is the cause

of all the misunderstanding and misapprehension. The basic
point to be kept in mind is that the very manifestation and
its functioning is a non-volitional affair (indeed a dream).

No part of the activity within that functioning could ever be

volitional effort. The very considering of anything as voli-
tional effort is the infamous karma. Remembering that,
everything remains clear and transparent.

You make it seem simple.

No, that is not so. No one could make anything seem
simple (and yet remain the truth) that is not essentially
simple. It is only our conditioning that obfuscates what is
basically simple.

But the karmic idea is the basic principle of a large body

of spiritual teaching.

No, that is It is in fact only an interpretation

not correct.
of the basic principles an incorrect interpretation. In fact, it
-

is frequently asserted in the Diamond Sutra (and elsewhere)

that it is contrary to the basic teaching. There is really a

simple explanation for this misapprehension. It is a truism
that no volitional factor can interfere with the operation of
the process of causation. That which is itself the cause of ef-
fects - a phenomenal object - cannot introduce a fresh cause
(the exercise of volition) in the inexorable chain of causation,
 202 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

because a fresh cause would imply the existence of an inde-

pendent objective entity. The individual human being is
merely an appearance, a puppet.

This subject of karma - and the closely allied subject of

reincarnation - is so important that we could discuss it sep-
arately in detail. At the moment, the matter of "volition"
is fascinating enough.

In fact "volition" is so fascinating because it is the very

base of the question of karma and reincarnation. Indeed,
without "volition", the other subject would not even arise!
Without "volition", maya would be exposed in such naked-
ness that she would have to disappear altogether. To live
non-volitionally means to cease to objectify, to cease to in-
terpret on the basis of nama-rupa (name and form), to live in
freedom, which is what a sage does.

And how does one do it?

That is the and the most comic - part of the
most tragic -

whole matter! How does "who" do "what"? The most direct

answer would be: "By experiencing the Teaching", or, "Un-
derstanding is all".

I have certainly fallen into the trap of conceptuality,

haven't I?

That is not your special prerogative! Perhaps you might

consider who has fallen into what trap? Are not both the
"who" and more than concepts? You
the "trap" nothing
have, as "you", neither any objective existence nor any sub-
jective existence. The difficulty is all a matter of identifica-
tion and attachment to that identification. In order to
renounce attachment, renunciation itself must also be re-
nounced. But, as renunciation itself is an act of volition, what
it amounts to is that volition must renounce itself. Volition

is only mind, not something we ever "possessed". How can

we have anything to possess or to do anything? "We" are
 VOLITIONAL EFFORT 103

only appearances in consciousness. Impasse? Not quite.

Ceasing to think, ceasing to conceptualize - "sitting quietly",
Maharaj used to say, using the word swastha (swa=se\f,
s£/zfl=established in) - would bring about whatever is neces-
sary i.e. a vacant or fasting mind in which all problems
created by the mind itself would collapse.

All this is not simple is it?

It is simple and very clear. All the difficulty and the cloud-
iness is the handiwork of thought, of intellect. And it is for
this reason that Maharaj said "sit quietly" or "JUST BE".

So you're suggesting that we should live non-volition-

ally. Is that it?

No. That is not it: It is not that I want to be difficult or

vexatious, but the fact of the matter is that there can never
be a "non-volitional" living as such, for the obvious reason
that the very act of living non-volitionally would mean voli-
tion. In other words, the volition of non-volition! The only
way "non-volitional living" can make sense is to let living
take place by itself, merely to witness ourselves being lived.
As a matter of fact, we are indeed being lived in what the
sage Vasishtha asseverates to be the living dream, in which
volition cannot possibly have any role to play. The sage
makes it very clear (in the Yogavasishtha) that life in its seri-
ally is a dream similar in every respect to the personal
dream. Volition, therefore, is only an imagined and not ac-
tual factor in our lives. Non-volition, therefore means the
abandoning of volitional action, not through the apparent
volition of the illusory ego that appears to function and "do"
things, but as the result or consequence of the understanding
itself, the understanding that is the dis-identification with

the illusory ego and an identification, though notional, with

WHAT-WE-ARE. Such understanding, that Maharaj referred
to, leaves the mind vacant or fasting so that it can receive the
 104 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

intuitional apprehension which automatically results in the

totality of functioning, in which the ego can have no rele-
vance.
Such intuitive understanding - the apperception - result-
ing in noumenal activity means experiencing the Teaching.
CHAPTER 19
WHAT WE ARE
Why is it so difficult to get a clear idea of what we are,
of our real nature? After reading several books on the sub-
ject - and meditating on the matter - 1 get a vague idea but
not the conviction I'm looking for. Why is that?
The direct and unequivocal answer to your question V
would be that what-we-are cannot be comprehended be- h
cause there is no subject other than what-we-are. In other
words, if what-we-are is to be comprehended as an object
there would have to be some other subject to comprehend it
-and the result of each comprehending subject becoming the
comprehended object would be what is called perpetual re-
gression. If you tell a child, in answer to a query, that he was
made by God, the query would immediately follow: then
who made God?! This progression ad infinitum, of all op-
posites and all complementaries, is the distinctive feature of
the mechanism of duality in which the phenomenal uni-
verse appears.

Is that the reason why Nisargadatta Maharaj used to say

that it is not possible to know what-we-are? We can only BE
THAT.

Yes - because knowledge is only the interrelated opposite

of ignorance. And what-we-are is prior to both knowledge
and ignorance, which can only be concepts. Maharaj also
used to define what-we-are as the absence of "presence-and-
absence".

I remember that. I was always intrigued by that phrase-

ology, but I know that it has been used by several Jnanis to

describe the indescribable as simply as possible.

 .

1 06 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

cannot say definitely but it is my feeling that a young

I

nuclear physicist would grasp it very quickly because he

often has to tackle such situations, though of course in a
different context altogether.The difficulty of comprehen-
sion arises because thewhole thing is undoubtedly a con-
cept. And the conceiver of the concept wants the answer to
free himself from a conceptual bondage in which he, as a
phenomenal object, an appearance, could never possibly be
bound. This dilemma becomes doubly confounded because
ifhe says he - the concept - does not exist, the question im-
mediately arises: who says (or knows) that he is not?This is
because the statement that "he is not" (or "he does not know
what he is") itself clearly implies and demonstrates that the
statement is made by that which IS prior to both knowledge
and ignorance, and prior to both presence of presence and
absence of presence.

So then, it is impossible to comprehend conceptually

and dialectically what-we-are.

Perhaps you could put it this way: the not-finding of the

ill answer (to the question "what are we") is itself the finding,
because if this not-finding leads to the abandoning of the
conceptual search and to the apperception of what non-con-
ceptually we are, such abandonment would include not
only the search but, far more significantly, the conceptual
seeker himself! What the finding would amount to is: phe-
nomenally speaking, we can be said to be the concept con-
ceived (the seeker) and that which is conceptualizing (the
sought) - the seeker being the sought, and vice versa, in other
words, " conceytuality" noumenally speaking, we, being "up-
;

stream of conceptualization" and thus not able to conceive

or be conceived are, in other words, "nonconcevtuality"

I must confess that I feel the truth of what you are say-

ing but find it difficult to grasp it.

 WHAT WE ARE 107

That's just the point! How can you expect to grasp non-
conceptuality conceptually? Phenomenally our appearance
- what we appear to be - is conceptual, whereas what-we-
are,being non-conceptuality itself, is clearly unknowable
conceptually, i.e. within the apparent limits of space-time.
What-we-are non-conceptually therefore must necessarily
be "the not-knowing of knowing", infinite and bitemporal,
neither any thing nor nothing.

What it means then is that what-we-appear-to-be can

never cognize what-we-are because what-we-are is what w
cognizes.

Right.
CHAPTER 20
"BONDAGE AND
FREEDOM" - SIMPLIFIED
How far can the concept of "bondage and liberation"
be simplified?

Every sentient being is a phenomenon. Indeed, as the et-

ymological meaning conveys precisely, every sentient being
- indeed every conceivable thing that is perceived by our

senses and interpreted by the mind - is an "appearance" (in

consciousness) extended in space and measured in dura-
tion, objectified in a world external to that which cognizes
it. In other words, that which cognizes it assumes it is the
,/
"cognizer the subject of the object that is cognized, and as
,

such assumes itself as an entity separate from that which is

cognized. It is these assumptions that bring about the corre-
lated assumption of bondage. It is simple enough to appre-
hend that liberation from this assumed bondage is merely
the abandoning of these assumptions which are clearly ap-
parent, phenomenal and therefore illusory. An "appear-
ance" is something "that appears or seems to be", not
something "that is".

Is this not simple enough?An appearance, an object, as-

sumes itself to be the subject of another appearance as its ob-
ject, forgetting that all appearances are objects and the only

subject is appearances. A clear apprehen-

the source of all
sion of this simple fact the remembrance that is needed
is all

to remove the forgetting that has brought about the sup-

posed bondage. What the mistaken "subject" considers as
the reality cognized by himself as a separate entity, is only
an appearance in consciousness - this apprehension is itself
the supposed liberation from the supposed bondage. With
 'BONDAGE AND FREEDOM" -SIMPLIFIED 109

this readjustment or transformation, neither the subject as <

an entity nor the object as an entity exists as such - and there )

is no bondage.

Is that simple enough?

Perhaps too simple. Could that be the reason why such

enormous conceptual structures have been erected on
such a simple base? To make the matter more impressive?

Perhaps.

Would be correct to say that in order to get rid of

it

bondage, all that needs to be done is to constantly think

of this-which-we-are-not?

On the contrary, what is necessary is not to think of this-

which-we-are-not. What is necessary is that there be no voli-
tion in whatever is done - this is the core of the Teaching.
Understanding is all. The understanding of THAT, which is
(S3
all that we could possibly BE, must act directly without the

intervention of any volition. Direct action - direct perception

- is upstream of discriminating thought and volition.

You mean no action as such is at all necessary?

Let us understandwhat we are talking about. Bondage

is, mere identification with a phenomenal object
specifically,
- simply the idea that that-which-we-are is an object (psy-

chic or somatic). Released from this mistaken notion of one's

personal objective existence, we are free of the supposed
bondage.
Enlightenment or liberation is pure subjectivity; what-
we-think-we-are is an appearance. How could the manife-
station of an appearance possibly affect its source,
irrespective of any action supposedly taken by the appear-
ance? A shadow cannot "act" on its substance. The fact of
the matter is that all apparent action - therefore all practice
of any kind whatsoever - is noumenal. It is noumenon alone
who "acts and practices", and phenomena are "acted upon
 1 1 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

and practiced ". But then the practiser and practiced, sepa-
rated only notionally as what they are not, have always been
unseparated as what they ARE. There is no practicer and
nothing to practice - no seeker and nothing to seek. Deep
apprehension of this is illumination.

If identification with a phenomenal object is bondage,

how does the sage continue to live like an ordinary human
being after liberation?

It is not the identification with a phenomenal object as

such that automatically means bondage. What is responsible
for the bondage is not the phenomenal object for the simple
reason that the object has no "ens". The object is not an en-
tity. It is the superimposition thereon of the elaborated no-

tion of an autonomous self with supposed independence of

choice and action thatis responsible for the effects of the ap-

parent "volition" known as "karma" and "bondage".

As long as there is a pseudo-entity, a "you", apparently
doing or not doing anything, nothing has spiritually hap-
pened. As long as a phenomenon does or does not do any-
thing with a pseudo-entity in the saddle, it is in "bondage".
What matters is not the identification with the phenomenal
object as such, but the difference between what you ARE and
what you think you are - bondage is identification of the
former with the latter. Abandoning of this identification is

liberation.
In other words, we need not hesitate to use the personal
pronoun speaking from a phenomenon that appears to
"I" as
act or not to act, so long as we are clear that we do not re-
gard that phenomenon as having any independent nature
or volition. Then, such phenomenon is not "in the saddle",
and the "I" is not identified with it. Then, there is no
bondage.
 1

'BONDAGE AND FREEDOM" -SIMPLIFIED 1 1

The final stage of fulfillment or deliverance - it can only

be conceptual when put into words - is the total integration
when "I" and "you", subject and object, lose all significance
because of the apperception that phenomena are noumenon,
and noumenon is phenomena.

Has what is called seeing phenomenally and seeing

noumenally anything to do with bondage and liberation?

It has everything to do with bondage and liberation.

Seeing phenomenally means seeing objects from the point

of view of the pseudo-subject and involves identification
with a phenomenal object as a separate entity with autono-
mous choice and volition - it means bondage.
Seeing phenomena noumenally is in-seeing or true C

seeing in non-objective relation with "things" which is lib-

- -

eration. Seeing noumenally is seeing phenomena not as our

objects, as being "without", but subjectively, as being
"within". It isreuniting the separated with their integer that
we are - reidentification of the dis-united, making the
divided mind whole.

Is it possible to put the matter of "bondage" (and lib-

eration) in, say, one sentence?

Yes, certainly.

Well, let's have it.

As long as there is a "me", thinking and feeling as a "me", ^£

that "me" an object and is in bondage.
is Why? Because all
>)
objects are necessarily in bondage.

Would your statement hold true even if that "me"

should have succeeded in freeing itself from fear, desire,
etc.?

Even if a "me" has succeeded in freeing its "self" from all

kinds of affectivity, it matters little so long as the freed "self"
is still there as a "self", considering itself freed and continu-
 112 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

ing to act as a freed self. The freedom from an apparent in-

cubus (and its oppressive influence) is not really of the es-
sence. What is of the essence is that the entity needs to be
eliminated, not the affective manifestation (like fear, desire
etc.) of the pseudo-entity. It is the presence of the phenome-
nal pseudo-entity which constitutes bondage, and the ab-
sence of which is freedom, liberation from the tyranny of the
conceptual entity.

Why should an entity be inescapably bound?

Because an entity an object that usurps and assumes
is

the subjectivity of the subject of which it is an object, and

thus falls into the bondage of apparent causality. It is for this
reason that Nisargadatta Maharaj - and other Masters - have
unequivocally stated that the presence of a seeker entity in-
evitably prevents enlightenment - there is no difference be-
tween ignorance and enlightenment as long as there is a
conceptual entity to experience either condition.

You mean only in noumenality can there be absence of

bondage, and therefore there is freedom only in non-ob-
jective, noumenal seeing?
Yes, that is it exactly. Only volition-free, noumenal living
can be free.

Could you tie it all up in a neat little package?

How about this? Separateness is the essential intrinsic

condition on which the conceptual bondage depends, and
abandoning of the separateness means freedom from that
bondage. The illusion of separateness arises owing to the ap-
parent presence of objects whose cognizer forgets his own
objectivity and assumes to be their subject. The real position
is that the supposed subject is himself an object like all other

appearances in the manifestation, whose cognizer is noth-

ing other than the cognizing itself - the nature of cognition -
so that the cognizer and all that is cognized form an innate,
 'BONDAGE AND FREEDOM" -SIMPLIFIED 113

inseparable Totality, or whole-mind. Separateness as con-

ceptual subject /object relation exists in the split-mind of du-
ality,and the realization of the essential wholeness
demolishes the separateness of any operational center in the
psychosomatic apparatus. Such realization is freedom from
bondage. It is liberation from solitary confinement in the
prison of "self" into the total freedom of universal identity
- experiencing the Teaching.

It has been said by many Masters at many times in

many ways bondage is merely bondage to a concept.
that
I have a vague idea of what is meant, but it is certainly not

clear.

It is the illusory entitification which is ''bondage" and the

cause of all the entraining suffering - bondage is bondage to

that concept of entitification. The concept, however, must re-
main nothing but a concept; and factually there never has
been, never could there be, any such thing as an entity to be
bound. Our happiness, our suffering, our bondage - our
"fall" out of paradise from the garden of Eden, or any other
metaphor from any religion - is entirely the effect of the iden-
tification of what-we-are with the cognizer element of the
pseudo-subject in the duality of our split mind. Such entiti-
fication brings into an illusory existence the concept of a sup-
posedly autonomous individual able to exercise personal
volition according to his own sweet will and pleasure.
The fact of the matter is that what-we-are (noumenon or
whole mind or universal consciousness), objectively
manifested as the totality of phenomena, has no objective
existence other than as the Totality so manifested. It is simple
to apprehend that what-we-are, having no objective exist-
ence as such, cannot possibly be subject to either bondage
or liberation. In other words, our bondage (and the allied
suffering) can only have a conceptual basis.
 114 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

think Maharaj once said that duration or time is the

I

very basis of bondage, that time is itself bondage. I do not

remember his elaborating on that statement. Could
Maharaj have said it or am I under some misapprehen-
sion?

must compliment you on the attention you obviously

I

gave to Maharaj's talks - at least this particular one! Maharaj

certainly must have said it because it is so very true.
We have seen how bondage is essentially bondage to the
concept of the entity It is not possible to conceive of any-
thing other than in the context of time or duration. A con-
cept needs duration like any other movement in
consciousness. The apparent bondage of phenomenal iden-
tification, of entitification, is entirely an effect of seriality or
time. Therefore,freedom is liberation from the bondage of
duration. As soon as there is integration into temporality, all
concepts of bondage and liberation (and the allied notions
ma and "re-birth") all being causal, temporal phenom-
ena dependent on sequence, must instantlv vanish into thin
air.

The manifestation of the apparent universe in conscious-

ness takes place through the five senses which perceive it
and the sixth winch cognizes it. Such manifestation com-
posed of the three components of phenomenal measure-
ment (volume, or space) could not have taken place without
an additional measurement which is time (duration), in
which the manifested events could be cognized. The whole
mechanism constitutes the objectivization oi what is subjec-
tive (non-objective) and formless and intemporal.

You mean the unmanif est intemporality has been made

objectively manifest through the medium of the concept
of "time".

Quite so. The tri-dimensional volume of phenomena has

been made manifest by means of the seriality oi "time" as
duration. Duration is the essence of all concepts, including
 'BONDAGE AND FREEDOM" -SIMPLIFIED 115

that of bondage and liberation, karma and re-birth. Libera-

tion, basically is freedom from the conceptual chains of du-
ration and entitification.
CHAPTER 21
SPEAKING OF GOD • • •

It seems to be expected, amongst the spiritually sophis-

ticated, to say that God is a concept. I wonder how many
have gone into the matter. So I'll ask you: What is God?

What a question! And you should ask that!! How could

there possibly be such a thing as God? God is not an object.

God is not an object - so then what?

God is subjectivity - the only subject of all objects - sub-

// ,
ject of the subject-object that one thinks of as oneself mis- /

takenly of course.

How do you mean?

What are you phenomenally? - nothing but an appear-
ance in consciousness. You think you are the subject of all
others as objects. But in fact, you and I and every sentient
object subjectively, noumenally, could only be whatever
noumenon - or Godhead - is.

What exactly do you mean?

I mean that Godhead - and each one of us (not as phe-
nomenal objects) - is the presence of what-we-are, which is

the absence of what-we-think-we-are.

And what is that?

Our total objective phenomenal absence, which can be

the subjective noumenal PRESENCE OF GOD.

You surely don't mean that objective phenomena dis-

appear!
 SPEAKING OF GOD... 117

Of course "Our total objective absence" refers to the

not.
disappearance not of an objective phenomenon as such, but
of the identification with an objective phenomenon that we
think we are. In other words, we are not "this" thing (that
we think we are) but THAT which cannot be any "thing".

Why do you say that God is not an object?

If God were an object, he would be one of a thousand ob-
jective gods, and not Godhead as you presumably mean.

I am not thinking of idols which are the objective gods.

The moment God is conceptualized, God is turned into a
god because any concept of God automatically becomes an
idol. And make no mistake, an image of a deity or saint,
whether in a temple or a church or any other place of wor-
ship, is an idol, whether it is regarded as only symbol or any-
thing else. And, all prayers and offerings to an object, symbol
or otherwise, material or conceptual, are prayers or offerings
to an idol.

This is blasphemy!

have only said what is obvious. Blasphemy and offence

I

can lie only in the mind in which such a notion has arisen.
What then is blasphemy? I shall tell you. Blasphemy is any
and every action done otherwise than in the presence of
God. This is clearly stated in the Bhagavad-Gita. And let it be
clear, by the presence of God, I do no t mean the presence of
an object, an idol. Irrespective of the presence or absence of
an object, an idol, what the "presence of God" means is the ab-
sence of the presence of the self It means the immanent divin-
ity.

What do you mean by the absence of the presence of

self?
 .

118 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

A self that prays humbly to God, and a self, without any

personal identification, that God, are essentially the same.
IS

Let it be clearly understood that by "humbly" is not meant

"without pride" because then humility would merely be a
counterpart of pride. By "humility" is metaphysically im-
plied the absence of any entity to be either humble or proud.

All this is extremely enlightening, but, do you know, I

feel that you have demolished some time-honored. .

Time honored what? Slogans, cliches, soporifics?

Maybe so. But they did and do give one a sense of secu-
rity.

Do you know what Nisargadatta Maharaj used to say

about these symbols of security? I don't think he ever asked
anyone to give them up even if the sense of security was re-
ally a false one. He merely suggested that one might carry
on as before until they dropped off by themselves. What he
meant to convey was: "Let us at least understand. When the
sense of guilt that would arise by deliberately giving them
up loses the strength of its conditioning, these symbols of
"
false security would fall off.

Of course there could be other considerations for con-

tinuing such practices.

Certainly. Maharaj himself faithfully carried out puja

three times aday because his Guru asked him to. As he said,
they don't do anybody any harm and could do a lot of good
for those who were not endowed with sufficient intelligence
to pursue the course of self-enquiry.

It seems to me that in this discussion about God, we

have ignored certain - yes, time-honored - concepts, for in-

stance, "love". Is it not said that God is love?
 SPEAKING OF GOD... 119

You have said it. Love is a concept, and God is love.

Therefore God is a concept. And of course, "love" is only the

counterpart of "hate". I am not unaware how the word is
used in a conventional sense, but an inaccurate word could
cause confusion and misunderstanding.

What word would you prefer?

Actually "LOVE", if used not as an expression of separate-
ness based on emotion, but to indicate compassion - Karuna
- is that which holds the world together in "at-one-ment".

is purely a phenomenon in du-

Preference, like difference,
would, however, use the word "unicity", though
ality. I

using any word somehow seems degrading because no

word could describe the indescribable and, of course, a word
itself is a temporal creation.

So "unicity" it is. God is unicity. It does convey a sense

of totality.

Also, us not forget that "love" is an expression of sep-

let

arateness because you are expected to love "others". In

unicity we do not love others - we ARE others; and our phe-
nomenal relation with "them" is non-objective, direct, spon-
taneous, and immediate.

What about "prayer".

Of course, the prayer. What would you pray for - more

rain and better crops, or perhaps increased industrial pro-
duction? A substantial rise in exports?
Now, let's not be flippant.

Oh, I assure you I am not. What I meant was that the word
prayer is generally understood as solicitation, which can be
seen by the fact that the word "pray" is generally followed
by the word "for". Prayer truly means communion. Indeed,
prayer communion, just like meditation is when
is there is

no meditator and nothing meditated upon.

 220 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

What is it you are trying to say?

Nothing at all - except perhaps that there cannot really be

any significance in either praying to (and adoring) a concept
of a paternal and merciful deity as "God", or in cursing and
loathing a concept of an inimical and merciless one as "the
Devil", for the simple reason that there can be nothing for
either to be other than what we ourselves ARE, who are doing
it.

Then, what would you have me do?

would not have you do anything, or not do anything.
I

That is the whole point. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said, un-

derstanding is all. JUST BE. That would be experiencing the
Teaching.
CHAPTER 22

OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS
SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE

I am back to what you would call the "Mahavakya ap-

proach". What would you say if you were asked to state
the one thing without the profound understanding of
which nothing else could be valid.

And with the profound understanding of which every-

thing else would follow naturally?

Exactly

I would absence of
say, "the final, the irresuscitable, total
oneself". If this is completely comprehended, everything
else would naturally follow.

Who is to comprehend this completely, if there is no

"oneself?"

Nobody - no body It is "I" who comprehend it. "I" who

do not now exist, never have existed, and never will exist as
Apperception that objective absence
oneself. is subjective
PRESENCE means total release.

But you are posing a problem that is insoluble: a self-

supposed - and therefore illusory - entity cannot be liber-
ated unless it abolishes itself, and, on the other hand,
unless it is liberated it cannot abolish itself!

There is an answer and that is: To a question posed in the

form of a vicious circle, in the context of a sequential dura-
tion (itself a concept), there can indeed be no answer. Release
the problem from the conceptual context of duration, and
the problem disappears. In conceptual duration, the sup-
1 22 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

posed experiencer does not have any existence other than as

an appearance, and the imagined experience of liberation
could be only a temporal illusion and not a factual occur-
rence, and therefore there can be no release as such. And out-
side of a time-context, there can be no entity to be abolished
and therefore no question of any liberation.

In other words, as you have been saying, from the in-

dividual's point of view problems will never cease; from
the viewpoint of Totality, problems can never arise.

Quite so. Phenomenality as such is not different from nou-

menality since they are merely two aspects of unicity - one
with form and in movement, the other without form and in
quietude.

Where then is the basic fault?

The concept itself is the basic fault. The self-supposed il-

lusory entity neither exists nor does not exist. It cannot
"either exist or not exist" . As Nisargadatta Maharaj used to
say, how can anything factually happen to what is merely a
phenomenal appearance, the noumenality of which (the
substance, the ground) transcendent to all concepts in-
is

cluding the basic conceptual media of space and duration in

which phenomena are extended? As Maharaj put it, "all that
the illusory entity can be (noumenally) is the absence of its

phenomenal non-existence".

Again we come to objective absence is subjective pre-

sence.

Yes. But the "objective absence" truly means not just the
absence of presence-and-absence, but the absence of the "the
absence of presence-and-absence" - the absence of that kind
of absence which is neither presence nor absence.

A sort of double absence?

 OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS 123
SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE

The double negative. Indeed that is what Nisargadatta

Maharaj implied, and what is precisely so described by
Taoist Masters like Shen Hui. That is also discussed in some
detail by Saint Jnaneshwar in his Amrutanubhava.

Could we discuss this a little further in more detail?

Perhaps it is important.

Indeed it ismost important. Everything in phenomenal-

ity is a concept. The double negative, intended to get rid of
duality irrevocably, must therefore also be a concept; but it
is like a thorn that is used to get rid of a thorn imbedded in

the foot and then is thrown away along with the imbedded
thorn. The double negative exposes the inexistence of the
supposed entity even beyond both existence and non-exist-
ence. Thus, there are self-contradictory opposite concepts
like non-being and being, non- manifestation and manife-
station, the former being negative, the latter counterparts
being positive. It is important to note that their assimilation
results not in the union of the two concepts (because it is psy-
chologically impossible for two thoughts to be united) but
in their negation. They abolish each other into a third con-
cept of voidness, which is the wholeness resulting from such
negation.

But where does the double negative come in?

The double negative comes in because the negation of the

two conceptual positive and negative counterparts still
leaves with us its ghost in the form of a third concept keep-
ing us bound - that of voidness. Thus, when objective pre-
sence and objective absence as such are superimposed, there
is no longer either presence or absence, for each counteracts

and annihilates the other. But then there is the resultant ab-
sence, and the conceiver of that absencel He cannot even say "I
am not", for in saying so he demonstrates that he is. What S
the double negative does is to negate the resultant absence.
 —
124 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

This further negation is the absence of that kind of absence

which is the absence of presence. In other words, the essen-
tial negation is that of whatever is conceptualizing these ab-

sences.

Could you put it in some other way?

That wouldn't help. What needs to happen is instant ap-
perception.

Even so, take a crack at it.

Well, we could state the totality of all phenomenal

manifestation in three segments that would cover every-
thing and yet be self-evident truths, in the following man-
ner :

a) we abolish opposing positions in space by stating that

noumenally there is "neither here nor there";
b) we abolish opposing positions in time by stating that
noumenally there is "neither now nor then";
c) we abolish opposing positions of "me" and "not me"

(or other) by stating that there is "neither this nor that".

All the three statements between them abolish opposing
positions of the thinker in both space and time. But the think-
ing entity as such remains intact. In other words, while the
entity as subject is removed not only from space-time but
even from identification with subject-object, this very removal
affirms its existence - who is removed? There continues to be a
"who" who has been removed from space, time and subject-
object identification. Thus while their relative positions have
been abolished, space-time-thinker all continue to exist as
underlying concepts; and until these remaining objects are
further negated, their subject - the entity - remains intact. To
put this differently, the usual negation formula "neither (ex-
ists) nor (does not exist)" is thus inadequate and what is

needed is a further negation - the "negation of neither

—
nor ". To give you a very rough example:
 OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS 125
SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE

When the TV is "oft" there is the absence of

pictures onthe screen.

When the TV is "on" there is the absence of

absence (of pictures).

When the TV station is shut off, there is the

presence of absence.

When the TV tower itself is removed there is

the absence of "presence and absence of ab-
sence"

How does this double negative become effective?

The double absence or the double negative will mean the
abolition of "no-space" (in addition to the first negation of
space) and of "no-time" (in addition to the first negation of
"time"). And such abolition of "no-space" and "no-time"
will mean the abolition of the conceptual beingness of their
subject-entity, because, while the absence of space-time is

conceivable, the further absence of no-space and no-time is

INCONCEIVABLE.

Isn't this a confusing way of expressing the matter?

It is whole point of the mat-
certainly confusing. But the
emphasize that while we could, and do, use the word
ter is to
"absence" to the whole negation, we must never forget what
the word "absence" encompasses and embraces. If there is
a clear apprehension of this fact, then it should be appre-
hended that the absence means:
a)the absence of neither here nor there
b)the absence of neither now nor then
c)the absence of neither this nor that
and thereby the absence of space-time and of the conceiver
of space-time and the absence of "me" (self) and of a con-
ceiver of "me" (self).
126 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

It is precisely for this reason that Nisargadatta Maharaj

used to call phenomenal manifestation "the child of a bar-
ren woman". Whatever concepts you may have and may
form about manifestation would be subject to the under-
standing that you were talking about what is totally incon-
ceivable.

How would the double negative work in practice?

The perceiving depth of the three absences based on
in
the double negative would
lead to the apperceiving of our
own objective absence, our total absence of "ens". That, in
its turn, would lead to our apprehension that we cannot

comprehend what-we-are because what-we-are is nothing

objective that could be known, and also because there can-
not be any comprehender to comprehend what-we-are.

Is there not a flaw in the double negative inasmuch as

the double negative may not stop at being "double" and
may well become a perpetual regression?
good question. The double negative could be
That's a
seen as only a "dialectical wheeze" to escape from duality
by means of duality. But then, as has been pointed out, it is
used as a thorn to uproot another imbedded thorn. Even so,
not really the concept that matters but the fact that the
it is

conceiver of the concept (whatever it may be) continues to

remain. And it is he who is at once bound and never could
be bound. Nor can he say "I am not" for in so saying he
clearly demonstrates that he is! He cannot take shelter be-
hind "immanence" because even the most impersonal im-
manence would still be an objective concept.
Have we reached an impasse then?
Not really. What the double negative really accomplishes
is draw attention to the fact that the usual simple nega-
to
tion "neither is nor is not" is not adequate enough to demol-
ish the supposed entity. Also, it points to the fact that the
 OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS 127
SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE

absence of the absence of nothing is the clearest indication

of what non-conceptually we are - that it is conceptually im-
possible to know what we are. We are left with no alterna-
tive but to abandon the search, which, together with the
// ,/
abandonment of the seeker, itself constitutes finding . The
finding is that the seeker is the sought, the sought is the
seeker; and that each, being the conceptual half of THAT
"
which cannot be conceived, is "neither is nor is not.

Could you give an example or two from ordinary life to

illustrate the not-finding itself being the finding?

You know the difficulty in giving examples and illustra-

tions to clarify points concerning non-conceptuality. All
such examples would be in conceptual duality, and this
point would have to be borne in mind very firmly when
making use of them.
Still, two examples could be given. One, certain problems

in algebra and geometry would be considered as solved

when the conclusion "but this is impossible" is arrived at.
That the problem is insoluble is itself the solution. The other
example would be that of a car stuck in the sand. Any effort
made by putting the car in forward gear makes the tires sink
deeper into the pit, and the reverse gear has the same effect.
Finally the effort to get the car out by using the gears has to
be abandoned.

Would it be correct to imagine that as long as one is em-

ploying concepts in split mind, every such concept would
be subject to the double negative?

That would be correct. Noumenally, every concept is

"neither is nor is not", but as soon as a whole-mind is in-

voked there is no longer a question of dual counterparts, of

a perpetual regression. Thus "total phenomenal absence is
total noumenal presence" need not imply anything beyond
dual concepts. As soon as the statement is apprehended, ob-
128 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

jectivizing split mind (through dual concepts) ceases;

by
functioning returns to the source and whole mind is
functioning directly.
Nisargadatta Maharaj used to assure us that the
complete apprehension of the initial identity of conceptual
opposites - even any one such pair - is itself liberation be-
cause "to see one was to see all". The perfect apprehension
that "total phenomenal absence is total noumenal presence"
should, he said, result in immediate disidentification with
the pseudo-subject of pseudo- objects (both being only con-
cepts totally devoid of'ens").

And such disidentification leads to integration?

Integration, or perhaps more accurately re-integration,

occurs. A rare equilibrium between normally excessive posi-
tive factors and normally deficient negative factors is

generated in a psyche by intensive negation. Such integra-

tion causes certain adjustments to arise in that psyche. What
happens then is that the phenomenon, suddenly relieved of
the cumbersome weight of the ego, feels a tremendous sense
of freedom from the burden of pseudo- responsibilities, the
heaviness of which it had not until then realized because it
had gradually become a normality. Such a sense of total free-
dom may find expression in diverse ways depending on the
constitution and conditioning of that phenomenon. It may
laugh hilariously and dance and want to embrace all phe-
nomenal creation. The sudden sense of freedom not unlike
freedom from gravity, may express itself in various ways,
but the fact to be remembered is that they are all affective
manifestations in temporal pheomenality, although they are
apt to be misinterpreted as divine grace or love or whatever.
The point is that the rest of the phenomenal events of that
particular livingdream are not likely to be changed drasti-
callyand would continue as heretofore, ranging from the
sagely and saintly to what might be considered "sinful" ac-
cording to current norms of morality. Serenity may well re-
 .

OBJECTIVE ABSENCE IS 129

SUBJECTIVE PRESENCE

place anxiety however, and all that happens henceforward,

whatever it may be, would be seen not only as inevitable but
as "right and proper"
Very briefly, the double negative or the double absence
could be said to be the absence of an entity to be enlightened
or not to be enlightened. What remains after the ultimate ob-
ject has been negated, is "I", the final affirmation of every-
thing that has been denied. The denial refers firstly to the
idea of a phenomenal object being "transformed" as an in-
dividual entity from what it appears to be into an
"enlightened" one. The more important denial refers to the
fact that there truly is no "one" to believe that the belief of
personal enlightenment is nonsense!

You have again ended on the note of an impasse.

Only from the viewpoint of temporal duality. Your ques-

tion obviously is: if there is truly no "one" to believe any-
thing one way or another, how can there be any
comprehending? The answer is astonishingly simple. An
apperception, deep enough to annihilate the "who", does
not need a comprehender. Apprehending - apperceiving -
does not depend on identity; it is only knowledge in tem-
porality that is only when the identity
so limited. Indeed it is

is annihilated that apperception neither knowledge nor

-

not-knowledge, but the absence of both - happens spon-

taneously and instantaneously
 CHAPTER 23
UNEXTENDED, YOU ARE
HOME
Nisargadatta Maharaj said "JUST BE". Does that not in-
volve a volitional act by an entity?

That there is no such thing as anonly an image in

entity,
consciousness, was what Maharaj said.
the very basis of
How could he possibly have meant a volitional act by an in-
dividual when he suggested that one should just "be"?

What else could he have meant?

In order to avoid any possible misunderstanding,
Maharaj always suggested that the listener should:
(a) read the Bhagavad-Gita from Lord Krishna's point of

view, and
(b) try to go behind the words that Maharaj uttered.
The point was that the listening should be done with a
receptive mind; an aggressively critical mind would erect a
barrier between the spoken word and the listened word. In
other words, there should be an honesty of intent in listen-
ing, so that the attention is not on the apparent contradiction
but in the real meaning behind the apparent contradiction.

I am sorry but here there is no question of contradic-

tion. Maharaj clearly said, "JUST BE".

Could he not have meant "do not try to become any-

thing"? You will recollect that the words "just be" were usu-
ally preceded by the words "understanding is all". And the
totalanswer, "understanding is all - JUST BE" was usually
given to the query from the listener, "what precisely is one
C to do?" In short, what Maharaj clearly indicated was that
 UNEXTENDED, YOU ARE HOME 131

since there was no entity as such, there was nothing to be

done, that understanding was all, and that, therefore, in the
absence of any positive action, the supposed individual can
"JUST BE".

All right, then. Can I "be" it?

Since you already are "it", and always have been, what
is there to "be"?

You mean, TO BE is being it, experiencing the under-

standing - or apperception?

Precisely. Is it not obvious? Any kind of action would

need someone to act.

But surely "being" is also a kind of action?

You would not have asked the question if you were not
so habituated to conceptualize all the time. Consciously

"being" is a concept, a movement in consciousness, requir-

ing duration in conceptual space-time. I cannot "be" what I
am!

I just AM?
£
Yes if you don't think it, let alone say it.

Do you mean I am "nothing"?

You are neither any "thing" nor no "thing".

I get it. You mean, what I am is just "am-ness"?

Of course not. Any kind of "-ness" is essentially a con-

cept ofsome "thing" conceptually extended in space and
duration.

It is absolutely impossible to get a straight answer from

you!

How right you are.

 132 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

Oh! You mean there cannot be an answer except in rel-

ativity - that there cannot be a relative answer to a ques-
tion that is not relative?

At last! The truth of a concept can be found relatively only

in the mutual negation of its relative elements, absolutely. It
is in the finding that you are aware of that negating, which
cannot be perceived.

So where does it leave me?

"You" cannot be, because "you" always, being an object,
must be conceptually extended, like "me", in space-time.
Only I AM - "I" who may be represented by any object ex-
tended in conceptual space-time, which is what relativity is.

How so?
Whatever is relative to the absolute is so because of con-
ceptual spatio-temporal extension contrasted with that of its
opposite. Both being mutually interdependent, such mutual
extensionis abolished by their mutual negation, by their su-

perimposition into a phenomenal void.

Phenomenal void?
Phenomenal void which is the noumenal potential
plenum, from which may arise all phenomenality.

In other words, the abolition of the conceptual exten-

sion in space-time abolishes relativity, revealing what-we-
are, spaceless and timeless. That is all?

That is all. Apprehend extension, and you're home. I AM

home.

When not extended, I can "be"?

Unextended in conceptual space-time we cannot "be" -

we ARE. AM. I
CHAPTER 24

THE BEGINNING AND THE

END
How does experiencing of the Teaching arise?
Experiencing arises in the culmination of the beginning
and the end of the Teaching.

Culmination of the beginning and the end?

What is the essence of the Teaching?

would say that the essence of the Teaching is that any

I

effort by an entity to improve himself or liberate himself

as an entity, would be a waste of time.

Absolutely correct. Is that not the beginning and the end

of the Teaching? Did not Maharaj say quite often that there
was nothing for him to teach and nothing for the visitor to
learn, that they all ARE what he is?

You mean that is the culmination of the beginning and

the end of the Teaching, - and that is experiencing?

Maharaj had nothing to teach other than the under-

standing that there is no entity to be "liberated" or
"awakened" or "enlightened" by any Teaching. It is the
beginning because unless there is apperception of this fun-
damental truth, all Teaching, methods and practice are not
only a waste of time but only serve to reinforce the illusion
of such an entity. And it is also the end because the apper-
ception of that is itself the only enlightenment there could
be.
 134 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

I understand. What then could there be to learn, and

who is there to learn? Where is the Teaching and who can
there be to teach?

It is for this reason that it is said that the Buddha taught

for forty-nine years, and yet no word was spoken. How
could he? The Buddha has no mouth - nor any of the other
organs or senses, which are the appurtenances of the psy-
chosomatic mechanism. There is only the fundamental un-
derstanding, the beginning and the end, the culmination of
which is experiencing.
What this amounts to is that we cannot find what we are
- or know what we are because we are already that, and there

is no one else who could find us or know us.

You mean we can never know what we are ?

Don't you see it? All that we can find is that as sentient
beings we must always appear as such, objectively extended
in the media of space and time. We cannot ever know our-
selves as anything but the totality of objectivized phenom-
ena, the existence which is nothing other than conceptual as
what is perceived and conceived as appearance. What we
are nonphenomenally can never be perceived or conceived
because cognizing cannot cognize "that which is cognizing"
and we are "that which is cognizing".

You mean that dialectic understanding is not enough to

annihilate our misunderstanding?

That is correct. But there is hope. The dialectic under-

standing of "what-we-must-be" may not be sufficient to
break our conditioning, but it could well transpire that the
understanding of "what-we-are-not" - anything objective at
(
all - is indeed capable of producing an intensity of concep-

tual negativity which may annihilate the false identification.

There is a solution of continuity between what-we-are and
what-we-appear-to-be, like there is between the moon and
its image in a puddle. In other words, the intellectual under-
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 135

standing of what we inevitably must be, coupled with the

deep conviction of what we are not, could, at some moment
predestined in the totality of functioning, bring about the
sudden instantaneous enlightenment.

But there has to be an intensity of purpose?

An intensity, yes, but not of purpose. An intensity of pur-

pose presupposes volition on the part of an entity that is
wholly illusory The intensity can only be of the nature of
that intensity of attention or concentration which exists
when there is total absorption in the doing of an act, when
the do-er is when the result of the act is not
utterly absent,
present in the divided mind, when indeed the divided mind
has regained its wholeness.

And the understanding that has thus become unitary

or noumenal understanding can never again revert to its
earlier division?

That Then, the understanding of the Teaching

is correct.

becomes the experiencing of the Teaching. The annihilated

do-er remains annihilated, and, knowing the source of our
phenomenal appearance in space-time to be what we nou-
menally are, we experience the living-dream to its allotted
span in peace. More accurately stated, there is no "we" to
experience the living-dream. There is only EXPERIENCING of .

the living-dream.
136 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING
 GLOSSARY
Arjuna One of the Pandava brothers in whose
war against their cousins, the Kauravas
(which is the subject of the Hindu epic
Mahabharata) , Lord Krishna (God incar-
nate) becomes Arjuna' s friend, philoso-
pher, guide and Guru. Krishna (as the
Guru) conveys the Supreme Truth to Ar-
juna (as the disciple) on the battlefield,
and their dialogue becomes the famous
Hindu Scripture know as Bhagavad-Gita

Bhagavad-Gita (See Arjuna)

dhoti A piece of fine muslin cloth worn by men

in India (opposite of sari, worn by
women)

Diamond Sutra Perhaps the most famous among the

Buddhist sutras (a scriptural narrative, a
text, traditionally regarded as a discourse
of the Buddha)

ens An entity (as opposed to an attribute);

separate existence

guru Master, enlightened preceptor

hatha-yoga The physical aspect of the yoga system

(believed to have been founded by the
sage Patanjali) by means of which the in-
dividual spirit (jivatma) can be joined or
united with the universal spirit (Para-
matma)
 138 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

janatepan Marathi word which Nisargadatta

Maharaj used as "knowingness", the
sense of presence, consciousness

Jnaneshwar A sage who lived in the 13th century in

Maharashtra (west coast state in India),
who wrote the Jnaneshwari, a tome of a
commentary in Marathi, on the famous
Hindu scripture known as Bhagavad-
Gita. He also wrote a small treatise on
non-duality, a classic in the field, known
as Amritanubhava (Experience of Im-
mortality) which is translated into Eng-
lish (with a commentary) ~ Experience Of
Immortality by Ramesh S. Balsekar (Bom-
bay: Chetana, 1984)

jnam One who has realized the unicity in the

phenomenal universe

karma Volitional action; action for which re-

sponsibility is assumed; an event

karuna Compassion

Krishna (See Arjuna)

lila The cosmos (the functioning of the Total-

ity) looked upon as the divine play
 GLOSSARY 139

mahavakaya The sublime pronouncement. Tradition-

ally, four Upanishadic declarations ex-
pressing the highest Vedanta truths: (1)
Prajanam Brahman (consciousness is
Brahman) (2) Aham Brahmasmi (I am
Brahman) (3) Tat Twam Asi (That Thou
Art) (4) Ayam Atrua Brahman (The Self is
Brahman)

Mahayana One of the two main divisions of Budd-

hism which moved out of India many
centuries ago, and was further
developed in China as Ch'an and Zen in
Japan. The other division was known as
Hinayana.

maya The appearance of the world;

illusory
That aspect of Consciousness through
which separation gets created: separa-
tion between phenomenality (manifest)
and noumenality (unmanifest), and sep-
aration between one individual and the
rest of the manifested world

moksha Liberation from worldly existence

nama-rupa Names and forms making up the

manifested world

namaskar Polite or respectful salutation

neti,neti not this, not this: the analytic process of

progressively negating all names and
forms (nama-rupa) making up the world,
in order to arrive at the ultimate Truth
 140 EXPERIENCING THE TEACHING

nirvana Emancipation from matter and reunion

with the Supreme Spirit (Brahman)

nisarga Nature; phenomenality; life

Parabrahman The Supreme Reality (Para - beyond +

Brahman - ultimate Reality)

prasadic Given as Grace or by way of blessing

puja Ritual worship

samsara Worldly existence

Yogavasishtha One of the most highly respected works

in Indian mysticism, the teaching of the
sage Vasishtha imparted to Lord Rama
 "Light, goes in search of
if it

darkness will find its absence/

RAMESH S. BALSEKAR is truly a rare light. Rather than

dispelling darkness he helps us awaken to understanding that
darkness merely an illusion ... a mirage. With astonishing
is

clarity he lifts us out of the morass that is our conditioned

thinking and points us to the Truth that is masked by our ego.

Through 24 dialogues between the Jnani (Enlightened Master)

and a disciple, we are allowed vivid insights into the nature of
God, alienation, Love, joy and BEING.
This is a book for the serious spiritual seeker. It points to the
most basic of all facts:

We are not what we think we are . . .

we are much, much more.

ISBN 0-929448-07-3