You Are Why Consciousness Arose | The Absolute Prior To Consciousness

Questioner: "Why did this consciousness arise?"

Maharaj: "You are both the question and the answer. All your questions come from identification with the body. How can any questions relating to that which was prior to the body and consciousness be answered?

There are yogis who have sat in meditation for many many years seeking answers to this question, but even they haven't understood it. And yet you are complaining."

"It is a great mystery."

"It's a mystery only to the ignorant.

To the one not identified with the body, it is no longer a mystery."

"Maharaj cannot convey it to us?"

"I keep telling you, but you don't listen."

"Does Maharaj see us as individuals?"

"There are no individuals; there are only food bodies with the knowledge 'I Am'. There's no difference between an ant, a human being, and Ishvara; they are of the same quality. The body of an ant is small, an elephant's is large. The strength is different because of size, but the life force is the same.

For knowledge the body is necessary."

"How did Maharaj get the name Nisargadatta?"

"At one time I was composing poems. Poems used to flow out of me and in this flow, I just added Nisargadatta.

I was reveling in composing poems until my Guru cautioned me, 'You are enjoying composing these poems too much; give them up!' What was he driving at? His objective was for me to merge in the Absolute state instead of reveling in my beingness. This was the way I realized Knowledge, not through mental manipulation.

My Guru said, 'This is so,' and for me, it was finished! If you continue in the realm of intellect you will become entangled and lost in more and more concepts. Consciousness is time flowing continuously. But I, the Absolute, will not have its company eternally because consciousness is time bound.

When this beingness goes, the Absolute will not know 'I Am'. Appearance and disappearance, birth and death, these are the qualities of beingness; they are not your qualities. You have urinated and the odor is coming from that — are you that odor?"

"No, I am not."

"This beingness is like that urine. Can you be that beingness?"

"Absolutely not."

"You require no more sadhana. For you, the words of the Guru are final."

Let us go deeper into this dialogue.

"You are both the question and the answer."

The question of why something rather than nothing? Why anything at all? Why life? Why experience? Why did consciousness arise?

Without you, there is no such question.

You are the question.

And the answer is — Because You Are.

You are the answer.

Without you there is no experience, no life, no world, no something, or even the knowledge of that preceding nothing.

You are why that nothing is not nothing.

Without you that first perception would not be perceived.

You are why consciousness arose.

You are why that No-thing is not nothing Because you are aware, experience is possible. Becomes actual; manifest.

"How can any questions relating to that which was prior to the body and consciousness be answered?"

Not through practice, not through thought, nor through experience.

The answer can only come through that which precedes the body and consciousness. That which became aware of the body and its related stream of consciousness.

"It's a mystery only to the ignorant.

To the one not identified with the body, it is no longer a mystery."

If you do not take yourself to be the body or anything inside the body, then you have lost the basis of individuality. You have lost yourself. Then there is no local and separate little you. Then you are universal.

The constant factor in every life; from Brahma to the last blade of grass.

The Aware-ness.

Dropping the belief in that illusory self, this is self-evident, obvious; proven in every moment. It is a mystery only under the assumption that there are separate selves; independent sentient entities; individual souls.

"There are no individuals. There are only food bodies with the knowledge 'I Am'. There is no difference between an ant, a human being and Ishvara; they are of the same quality."

Food bodies. As the body consumes food to function, Nisargadatta saw the body itself as food for consciousness to function.

Because of the functioning of the body, the knowledge 'I Am' has emerged. Consciousness has become manifest. Or you could say, the Unmanifest has become the manifest. When the body is consumed and runs out of juice, this knowledge will dissipate.

Consciousness will go back to its original state. The manifest will return to being the Unmanifest.

"For knowledge, the body is necessary."

I sometimes talk in terms of the body being the instrument.

Like an instrument on which the music is played. The activity of the instrument gives rise to sound. But the sound only becomes music when it is perceived. Similarly, consciousness is only consciousness at the moment you become aware of it.

Most of what is going on in this body is never rising up as music. Many intricate processes take place for some of it to rise up to your notice. When the knowledge 'I Am' arises, that is the emergence of something from nothing.

Creation.

The Virgin Birth.

The Immaculate Conception.

As this understanding sinks in, the mind is, of course, inspired.

"Poems used to flow out of me and, in this flow, I just added Nisargadatta."

It is traditional in India to add a pen name to your poetry. Nisargadatta — meaning nature itself. It was not that Nisargadatta had not realized the Truth. The name itself reveals the depth of his insight.

But his Guru told him to give up this poetry. To give up even this love for expressing. The physical Guru or the inner Guru, who knows?

But the "objective was for me to merge in the Absolute state instead of reveling in my beingness."

This is the final step: To not be enamored only with being, with existence, with the state of consciousness, with the knowledge 'I Am', but to look beyond.

This knowledge too must eventually be given up. Everything you have realized and understood must be given up. It must come and go. To accept yourself as you are, to love Nature is not only to love existence; to love 'living things'.

It is to see the nonduality of existence and inexistence; that there is no real boundary between the sentient and the insentient.

Because the basis is Sentience; Awareness.

To know yourself, you must know not just beingness, but non-beingness.

You are not only life but also death.

Not just everything but also nothing.

The beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, That is Reality.

"Consciousness is time flowing continuously. But I, the Absolute, will not have its company eternally because consciousness is time bound.

When this beingness goes, the Absolute will not know 'I Am'. Appearance and disappearance, birth and death, these are the qualities of beingness; they are not your qualities."

You, the Awareness, that knows that this stream of consciousness had a beginning. You who were present in the absence of experience, who noticed its arrival from that absence.

That You doesn't have these qualities of birth and death, appearance and disappearance. It is from the absence of all such qualities; the absence of experience, the absence of space and time, it is from that absence that the presence of experience is first noticed. It is from there that the knowledge 'I Am' is first known.

That 'absence' is the absolute presence.

The Absolute.

"You have urinated and the odor is coming from that — are you that odor?"

The odor is only the consciousness. What is rising up from the physics, or the chemistry, or the body, whatever level you want to look at, the smell comes from that.

The beautiful and the ugly, heaven and hell, it's a package deal. That is existence; consciousness; beingness.

"Can you be that beingness?"

"Absolutely not."

There's a conviction in you that says, "Absolutely not."

That which you experience can only be an experience. That which you perceive can only be a perception. That which you know cannot truly be you.

That clear and obvious fact is where the "absolutely not" comes from.

Those are the words of the Guru.

They are final.

May 14, 1980.

Maharaj: "Doctors have diagnosed that this body has cancer. Would anyone else be as joyful as I am, with such a serious diagnosis? The world is your direct experience, your own observation. All that is happening is happening at this level, but I am not at this level.

I have disassociated myself from Sattva Guna, beingness. The Ultimate state in spirituality is that state where no needs are felt at any time, where nothing is useful for anything. That state is called Nirvana, Nirguna, that which is the Eternal and Ultimate Truth. The essence and sum total of this whole talk is called Sat-guru Parbrahman, that state in which there are no requirements.

After the dissolution of the universe, when no further vestige of creation was apparent, what remained is my perfect state. All through the creation and dissolution of the universe, I remain ever untouched. I have not expounded this part: My state never felt the creation and dissolution of the universe. I am the principle which survives all the creations, all the dissolutions.

This is my state, and yours, too, but you don't realize it because you're embracing your beingness. Realizing it is only possible when one gets support from invincible faith, from that eternal Sat-guru Parabrahman. This state, this Parabrahman principle, is eternal and is also the Sat-guru. It is the eternal property of any devotee of a Guru."