Your True Self is Pure Consciousness

“You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love… The pure mind sees things as they are – bubbles in consciousness. Consciousness has to appear in this form, so this form can recognise consciousness. Remove the sense of separateness and there will be no conflict. The whole world is an ever-changing state. No form is permanent. All you have to do is see the dream as a dream… you are the formless, timeless, Unborn..” ~Maharaj Nisargadatta

“Without Self-knowledge all is trouble. If you want to live sanely, creatively, and happily, and have infinite riches to share, search for what you are. Without it you will be consumed by desires and fears, repeating themselves meaninglessly in endless suffering.

Look at the net [of human existance] and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net [of relationships] as made of such contradictions and remove them – your very seeing will make them go.

To you, you get born and die, while to me the world appears and disappears. You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. You cling to the idea that you were born into a world of pain and sorrow; I know that the world is a child of love.

Your personal universe does not exist by itself. It is merely a limited and distorted view of the Real. It is not the universe that needs improving, but your way of looking.

Your own Self is your ultimate teacher. The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for [within you] is the goal. There are no others to help. The only thing that can help is to wake up from the dream. Seek within. Your own Self is your best friend.

As long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed. The false self must be abandoned before the real Self can be found.

By all means be selfish – the right way. Wish yourself well, labour at what is good for you. Destroy all that stands between you and happiness. Be all, love all, be happy, make happy. Without love all is evil. Life itself without love is evil. You are love itself when you are not afraid.

Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering. Remove the sense of separateness and there will be no conflict. The whole world is an ever-changing state. No form is permanent. All you have to do is see the dream as a dream… you are the formless, timeless, Unborn. I ask you to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on.

Go to the source of both pain and pleasure, of desire and fear. Observe, investigate, try to understand. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living.

Do not undervalue attention. It means interest and also love. To know, to do, to discover, or to create you must give your heart to it, which means attention. All blessings flow from it. When you are free of the world, you can do something about it.

Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is the service of love, of life, of beauty, of Truth. All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate.

You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world. Desire the good of all and the universe will work with you.

Enquire what is permanent in the transient, real in the unreal. This is sadhana. Think of yourself by all means. Only don’t bring the idea of a body into the picture. Attachment is bondage, detachment is freedom. To crave is to slave.

The illusion of being the body-mind is there only because it is not investigated. Non-investigation is the thread on which all the states of mind are strung.

The idea, “I am the witness only”, will purify the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then one goes beyond illusion and the heart is free of all desires. Just like ice turns to water and water to vapour, and vapour dissolves in air and disappears into space, so does the body dissolve into pure awareness, then into pure being, which is beyond all existence and non-existence.

All your problems arise because you have defined and therefore limited yourself. When you do not think yourself to be this or that, all conflict ceases. Any attempt to do something about your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in freedom from desire.

The pure mind sees things as they are – bubbles in consciousness. These bubbles are appearing, disappearing and reappearing, without having real being. No particular cause can be ascribed to them, for each is caused by all and affects all. Each bubble is a body and all these bodies are mine. All your questions are sprouting from your identification with the body-form.

Prior to the appearance of this form, I was neither being or no being. Consciousness has to appear in this form, so this form can recognise consciousness. Whatever appears in consciousness will disappear in consciousness, but consciousness is ever present.”

~Maharaj Nisargadatta