| I AM THAT |
 |
| Q: Between the sprit and the body, is it love that provides the bridge? M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the hearts crosses it. ** Q: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation? M: We know the outer world of sensations and actions. But of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. Incidentally, practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious release energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet. Q: What is the use of quiet mind? M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the Pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in Pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: `I am this', I am that", continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps. ** Q: As a child fairly often I experienced states of complete happiness, verging on ecstasy: later, they ceased, but since I came to India they reappeared, particularly after I met you. Yet these states, however wonderful, are not lasting. They come and go and there is no knowing when they will come back. M: How can anything be steady in a mind which itself is not steady? Q: How can I make my mind steady? M: How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot. It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind. Q: How is it done? M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought of `I Am'. The mind will rebel at first in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally, without any interference on your part. ** - Nisargadatta Maharaj "I am That" Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Published by Acorn Press |
 |
 |
| More quotes on love and, meditation. |
|