I am not talking to an individual | Nisargadatta Maharaj

Consciousness and the Absolute.

Questioner:

"Why is it that we naturally seem to think of ourselves as separate individuals?"

Maharaj:

"Your thoughts about individuality are really not your own thoughts; they are all collective thoughts. You think that you are the one who has the thoughts; in fact, thoughts arise in consciousness.

As our spiritual knowledge grows, our identification with an individual body-mind diminishes, and our consciousness expands into universal consciousness. The life force continues to act, but its thoughts and actions are no longer limited to an individual. They become the total manifestation. It is like the action of the wind – the wind doesn't blow for any particular individual but for the total manifestation."

Questioner:

"As an individual, can we go back to the Source?"

Maharaj:

"Not as an individual. The knowledge 'I Am' must go back to its own Source. Now consciousness has identified with a form.

Later, it understands that it is not that form and goes further. In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often there it stops. In a very few cases, it reaches its real Source, beyond all conditioning. It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self.

I am not talking to an individual. I am talking to the consciousness. It is consciousness which must seek its Source. Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of 'I Am' and then suddenly the space is there.

In the space movement starts with the air, the fire, the water and the earth. All these five elements are you only. Out of your consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only You.

The total functioning is You. The consciousness is You. You are the consciousness. All the titles of the gods are your names, but by clinging to the body, you hand yourself over to time and death.

You are imposing it on yourself. I am the total universe. When I am the total universe, I am in need of nothing because I am everything. But I cramped myself into a small thing, a body; I made myself a fragment and became needful.

I need so many things as a body. In the absence of a body, do you, and did you, exist? Are you, and were you, there or not? Attain that state which is and was prior to the body.

Your true nature is open and free, but you cover it up. You give it various designs."

Let us go deeper into this dialogue.

"Your thoughts about individuality are really not your own thoughts; they are all collective thoughts. You think you are the one who has the thoughts.

In fact, thoughts arise in consciousness."

Thoughts arise. It can sound like you are the one thinking, the one creating these thoughts. But no one is thinking them.

They are the outcome of processes taking place on a grand scale. A scale both minute and vast, intricate beyond imagination.

"You think that you are the one who has the thoughts. In fact, thoughts arise in consciousness."

Now if these thoughts talk of individuality, say that you are an individual, they are just following their own little grooves. In truth, no thought can know of that which perceives the thoughts.

"As our spiritual knowledge grows, our identification with an individual body-mind diminishes and our consciousness expands into universal consciousness. The life force continues to act, but its thoughts and actions are no longer limited to an individual.

They become the total manifestation. It is like the action of the wind. The wind doesn't blow for any particular individual but for the total manifestation."

As you stop believing each and every thought, as the thought-based image of you dissolves, you come to realize what you truly are.

You are not this body or mind, nor an individual soul tied to this body mind. All you truly know about yourself is that you are conscious. It begins to dawn on you that maybe you are just this consciousness. And once you know yourself to be consciousness itself, there's nothing left to tie your identity to this particular body or mind.

Because consciousness has no qualities of individuality. The only quality of consciousness is that of being conscious.

So at any point in the universe where that quality exists, in any instance of life, in every experience, in any universe – That which makes the experience possible and perceives it, that is You.

Despite this epiphany, life continues. Thoughts arise, feelings flow, events are witnessed, but they are no longer seen as the thoughts and life of an individual.

It is no longer "my" life. It is all part of the total manifestation. It is like how the wind blows and how the clouds move across the sky.

Questioner:

"As an individual, can we go back to the Source?"

Maharaj:

"Not as an individual. The knowledge 'I Am' must go back to its own Source."

Give up the idea of trying to understand all this as an individual realizing something as a person. This is a message from Consciousness to Consciousness.

A call for this knowledge I Am to merge into this knowing, so that the knowledge and the knowing are one. Through this union they become true knowledge. Self-knowledge.

"Now consciousness has identified with the form. Later it understands that it is not that form and goes further.

In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it stops. In a very few cases, it reaches its real Source, beyond all conditioning."

In every life, Consciousness becomes entwined with the form that it is in fact just witnessing. For Consciousness has no thoughts of its own, no memories of its own, no image of itself.

The Formless identifies with a particular form. And while that particular form is nothing but the formless taking shape, it gives the wrong impression. It casts consciousness as being a possession of the form, the property of some conscious entity, a person.

Very rarely, through the grace of wisdom, it begins to dawn on you that maybe you are not this form. Then you see how universal you are. You're like the infinite space that contains all worlds, all minds.

But that is not the end of how deep this goes.

The final step is to recognize your own true Source.

To face what in your guise as consciousness seems like death – the void; that "nothing" at the beginning of time.

"It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self. I am not talking to an individual. I am talking to the consciousness. It is consciousness which must seek its Source.

Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of 'I Am' And then suddenly the space is there. In this space movement starts, with the air, the fire, the water and the earth. All these five elements are You only.

Out of your consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only You. The total functioning is You. The consciousness is You."

There is no individual.

As Consciousness, You inquire into your own Source. As quietly as twilight, as naturally came the first perception, that original thought feeling knowledge.

I Am.

That is knowledge in its pure form. And only in consciousness when this knowledge is present can there be space for objects to appear, for time and its processes to start ticking. This is impossible to see as an individual. Because what is being talked about here applies to what is considered a physical universe.

That physical universe is secondary to Consciousness. This becomes clear when you are not identified with this body or mind. When you do not consider consciousness as the possession of things that exist in space and time.

When you dream, where does the dream world appear?

There is space and time in the dream too. Those are appearing within Consciousness. Space is always relative, subjective, and not the Ultimate Reality. When space appears, it is within the basis of subjectivity itself.

Consciousness.

Consciousness is one level deeper, more fundamental, more real than space and time. The universe itself is a dream in Consciousness. And the lives of all these bodies are dreams within that dream.

Yet even with this understanding there remains one question. What is most fundamental? What was I before this knowledge I Am?

The answer comes from asking this question from this impersonal, universal, yet your own standpoint.

How could creation appear within You? How could this knowledge, I Am, dawn on You so suddenly, spontaneously, yet most naturally?

Ask it from the right standpoint and the answer is self-evident.

Because You are Consciousness.

Because in that void, You remain present and conscious.

Because You are the void; that "nothing" before the beginning of time.

You are not just Consciousness, but the Absolute. Yet also, simply, most evidently, this Consciousness.

"You are the Consciousness. All the titles of the gods are your names. But by clinging to the body, you hand yourself over to time and death. You are imposing it on yourself.

I am the total universe. When I am the total universe, I am in need of nothing because I am everything. But I cramped myself into a small thing, a body. I made myself a fragment and became needful.

I need so many things as a body."

This life is a dream within a dream. Because the universe itself, space and time itself can only exist as a dream within Consciousness. There is no other aspect of Reality that can contain space.

Space is always subjective. All objects are always subjective. In consciousness, You are the basis of subjectivity itself. You are everything, everywhere, all at once. Yet in this life, this dream within a dream, all experience pertains to the functioning of this body, this little fragment.

Still you remain as the total functioning, the Totality – the Prior-most, the Present and everything Yet-to-be.

"In the absence of a body, do you, and did you, exist? Are you, and were you, there or not? Attain that state which is and was prior to the body.

Your true nature is open and free but you cover it up. You give it various designs."