You were present when consciousness emerged | Nisargadatta's Vision

This is a dialogue between Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and a spiritual seeker as recorded in the book Consciousness and the Absolute. It starts with Maharaj speaking.

How did I get to the truth that I prevail everlastingly? By meditating on the meditator, by "I Amness" merging into "I Airiness."

Only then did I understand what my true nature is. The great Sages meditated in the same way. Nobody had told me how to do it. I did not seek this knowledge externally. It sprouted within me.

I meditated like the Sages and saw a vision. Initially, there was space, and in the space, I saw the principles embodied. Actually, they have no bodies, but in my vision they had bodies. I called them Prakriti and Purusha, the male and female aspects of cosmic Consciousness.

Until the union of Prakriti and Purusha, the dynamic, all-pervading Consciousness lay in a dormant state. In the union of the male and female aspects, emissions were planted in the female of these figures. When these emissions merged in the womb, they started taking form. After nine months of gestation, an infant was delivered.

The consciousness which was planted in the womb was the causal body, the "lingadeha." In that "lingadeha", the knowledge "I Am" was in a dormant condition. This is what I saw in meditation.

Questioner: How did we lose this pure consciousness state?

M: Every being experiences the Ishvara state, either directly or potentially, but he is so wrapped up in this objective world that he loses his identity.

You must know what this "I Am" principle is. It appears spontaneously, and with its appearance begins the riddle of conceptual life.

QHow do I start the search for my Self?

M: Start from the very beginning.

In this gross world I began with my parents, because I knew full well that my principle was already dwelling there in the collection of their bodily elements out of which I emanated. But I came to the conclusion that I could not be that principle which came from the mother's body. There's nobody here who is 100 years old. Does that mean that 100 years ago you did not exist?

QI don't know.

M: The one who said, "I don't know" must have been there. In short, you were not like this, but you must have been something. You must comprehend this correctly.

100 years back, I was not like this; so, the one pointing this out must have been there. You did, and do, exist unto eternity. What I am expounding does not relate to worldly knowledge. You do not want to give up either worldly knowledge or so-called spiritual knowledge, and yet, through these worldly concepts, you want to understand the riddle of your existence, and that is precisely why you are not able to understand.

In truth, your state is one of absolute bliss, not this phenomenal state. In that non-phenomenal state, you are full of bliss, but there's no experience of its presence. In that state, there's no trace of misery or unhappiness, only unalloyed bliss. What am I talking about?

QAnanda (bliss).

M: Because you want some satisfaction according to your own concepts, you try to qualify unalloyed bliss. The term "ananda" has significance only when it signifies that the bodily beingness is available to experience it. When you are in deep sleep and you start to see forms, you are actually dreaming.

Aren't those dream forms coming from your own beingness? Whatever you see, even in the waking state, doesn't it come from your own beingness which is dwelling within the body? In deep sleep, consciousness was in a dormant condition; there were no bodies, no concepts, no encumbrances. Upon the arrival of this apparently wakeful state, with the arrival of the concept "I Am," the love of "I Am" woke up. That itself is Maya, illusion.

QDoes Maharaj mean that the experiencer of the three states is the Self?

M: That is the Saguna Brahman state. Because of your beingness, the other states are. The dream world is very old, it is not new.

You see old monuments in your dreams. Your beingness is very powerful. The emergence of this beingness itself constitutes time. Everything is beingness, but I, the Absolute, am not that. In meditation, there was space.

Then suddenly two forms appeared out of no-form, Prakriti and Purusha, and the quintessence of these forms was the knowledge "I Am." There were no forms, then suddenly forms appeared, just as in the dream world. You as a dreamer are sleeping on the bed, but in your dream world, you see a body, and you think it is you, and you are doing everything to this dream body. In the same way, bodies are created in the so-called waking state.

The Prakriti and Purusha state has no form and is eternal, having neither a beginning nor an end. But from it come the five elements, and with them, simultaneously, the body is formed at the moment that time is first experienced. This process is ever continuing, with the body-form merely indicative of the opportunity to experience time. This explanation will not reach home to everyone.

At the moment of so-called death, with what identity would you like to depart?

QAs Parabrahman.

M: The Absolute, which I call Parabrahman, what is it like? What you are doing is multiplying words with more words, concepts with more concepts.

QMaharaj must take me out of this.

M: Can you define what you are?

QI must have your blessing to understand what I am.

M: You are very adept at word games.

While I am talking about knowledge that is beyond this phenomenal world, you are trying to understand through worldly concepts and words. Give up all these concepts and inquire into the nature of your beingness. How did you happen to be? Ponder it!

The real blessing of the Guru comes when your knowledge itself sprouts inside you.

Now, let us revisit some of the important points in this dialogue.

Maharaj seldom shared what he experienced or saw leading up to his realization. This is one of the rare occasions when he did.

It must be kept in mind that this was a vision; it was symbolic. So, what is this Prakriti and Purusha? Rather than any research, I will describe from my own experience; a vision I had for myself. It was under an altered state of mind.

There was the Father, which was the Foundation, the laws of physics which allow even the space and time to emerge from nothing — the very basis of Reality. That was the one principle, the Father as it appeared in my mind. And then there was the force of creativity, Nature, the Mother. And through that Power, upon the laws of Reality, there emerges creation.

Step by step, little by little. The quarks and the leptons, the hydrogen and the helium, the stars, the planets, the galaxies.

Life.

Always step by step, always creating upon that Foundation.

In that vision, these two principles together helped explain everything. How "something" can appear out of "nothing", How life can emerge from dead matter, and how consciousness arises.

This is what Nisargadatta keeps pointing back to, to understand for yourself how you came to be.

How did this state of consciousness appear upon you?

What was the child that was born?

This understanding, as it takes shape, applies at every level. The emergence of the universe, the emergence of life, of consciousness, of this particular life in which you seem to be a person that was born.

But what was really born was experience.

The knowledge "I Am" appeared.

If you look at the world right now, the whole spectrum of experience, and you take away the thinking, what is it? It is simply the knowledge "I Am" without words. The knowledge of being, the fact of being, being described in all kinds of ways.

Colors and shapes and sounds and sensations and feelings — Just the different ways in which this knowledge is being announced.

So, it can be put in the way Nisargadatta said, that this knowledge was always there in a dormant state. The potential was there, the possibility of consciousness, and through the coming together of the forces of Nature, this principle appeared, spontaneously. It was the seed, and it has bloomed into this world, into this life, into all these lives.

The raging river of life flowing on this planet.

"Start from the very beginning.

In this gross world I began with my parents, because I knew full well that my principle was already dwelling there in the collection of their bodily elements out of which I emanated."

The vision was not that spectacular. So, many people who ingest exotic substances and have these experiences.

But what you get out of it depends on the clarity of your understanding, on the earnestness of your Self-inquiry. From this vision, Nisargadatta continued his inquiry.

"I came to the conclusion that I could not be the principle which came from the mother's body."

Neither the physical mother, nor the principles of nature. Because their coming together only produced the knowledge "I Am."

It only created these structures, these bodies. Within them, the activity took place, and through that, experience arose.

You cannot be that principle.

You cannot be the principle that has emerged and is known to you.

There are many ways to arrive at this conclusion for yourself. If you consider the egg, how it divides into the placenta and the embryo — the very same matter. One part is food. Can the other part turn into a conscious being? It is only the activity of the body that differentiates it from the placenta.

From certain activity, experience arises, and you know that experience. So, you are not the principle that has emerged.

"There's nobody here who is 100 years old. Does that mean that 100 years ago you did not exist?

The one who says, 'I don't know' must have been there. In short, you were not like this, but you must have been something. You must comprehend this correctly. 100 years back, I was not like this.

So, the one pointing this out must have been there. You did and do exist unto eternity."

The One who looks back and knows that this stream of consciousness had a beginning, that there was a point when experience emerged, that one must have been there.

You were already present at the moment consciousness emerged.

Otherwise, it would be unthinkable for you that consciousness can come and go.

When the knowledge "I Am" appeared spontaneously, you were there. You were there in that Timeless State, in what can be called Eternity.

"In truth, your state is one of absolute bliss, not this phenomenal state. In that non-phenomenal state, you are full of bliss, but there's no experience of its presence."

This is the sage's understanding of bliss.

It is not the ego's idea of bliss, where your mind may be in bliss but everyone else may be suffering just the same. Bliss is where there is no misery. There is no knowledge of being here, of being alive, of being this or that. It is the Bliss you know was there in deep sleep, when you emerge from deep meditation.

That is true Bliss, where you forget that you even exist.

Because if you knew that you exist for eternity, that would be the opposite of bliss.

"In that state, there is no trace of misery or unhappiness, only unalloyed bliss."

This is not the bliss which requires a body or a mind, or even the knowledge "I Am."

"When you are in deep sleep and you start to see forms, you're actually dreaming.

Aren't those dream forms coming from your own beingness? Whatever you see, even in the waking state, doesn't it come from your own beingness which is dwelling within the body?"

The beingness is this knowledge "I Am," the knowledge without words. The knowledge of being, existing; the seed which blossoms into experience, this stream of consciousness.

"In deep sleep, consciousness was in a dormant condition.

There were no bodies, no concepts, no encumbrances. Upon the arrival of this apparently wakeful state, with the arrival of the concept 'I Am,' the love of 'I Am' woke up. That itself is Maya, illusion."

This consciousness, this beingness, this "I Am" — it may be very powerful. It creates everything in terms of experience; the whole world, all worlds.

"The emergence of this beingness itself constitutes time.

Everything is beingness. But I, the Absolute, am not that. In meditation, there was space. Then suddenly two forms appeared out of no-form, Prakriti and Purusha.

And the quintessence of these forms was the knowledge 'I Am.' There were no forms, then suddenly forms appeared, just as in the dream world."

This is the point to which you must return until it is clear: How do forms appear out of the formless?

The vision only clarified this little point. But you don't need a vision for it.

It happens every morning as you emerge from sleep. It happens in every moment as the next sensation, or sound, or sight, or whatever appears.

That is the formless taking shape into forms.

And it's all because of this knowledge, "I Am."

If you take away that knowledge, no forms can appear.

That is the root, the seed.

"You as a dreamer are sleeping on the bed. But in your dream world, you see a body and you think it is you, and you are doing everything through this dream body.

In that same way, bodies are created in the so-called waking state."

It is always subjective; the world is always subjective. The bodies you see are not physical objects. They are the sights, the sensations, the sounds.

"The Prakriti and Purusha state has no form and is eternal, having neither a beginning nor an end.

But from it come the five elements, and with them, simultaneously, the body is formed at the moment that time is first experienced."

The body is not a thing in itself. Ask the physicists. Ask the biologists. It is only a "thing" in the dream.

"This process is ever-continuing, with the body form merely indicative of the opportunity to experience time.

This explanation will not reach home to everyone."

"Give up all these concepts and inquire into the nature of your beingness. How did you happen to be? Ponder it!

The real blessing of the Guru comes when your knowledge itself sprouts inside you."