More Nome Dialogues

Another Q.: Inquiry is a process of
keeping the thoughts at bay. Sometimes while
inquiring, I daydream. Thoughts rise up, and I
become a thought. So, I am looking at what it
is that causes veiling, that appears to have
changed my identity and covered up the deep
experience of myself. It has certain qualities.
It is a memory. It appears to be in this time
called “the past.” So, I ask, what is the substance
of all that? When I look at it clearly, it
doesn’t seem to have much substance. Then,
the one who seems to have the veil and the
veil itself seem to collapse. It is like being able
to remember a dream when one is awake.
N.: (silence). What are you looking for?
Q.: I am looking for myself.
N.: Are you looking for confirmation of
your idea or Realization of the Self?
Q.: It is confirmation of some idea.
N.: And, if you get that idea
confirmed, what then happens?
Q.: Not much. (laughter)
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N.: You first spoke of keeping thought in
abeyance. Actually, when reading the
Maharshi’s words, “keeping off thoughts”
refers to being transcendent and undefined by
any thought. It has little to do with the
increase and decrease in the number of
thoughts.
Q.: Okay. That is so important. I have
this idea that I must get rid of the thoughts. It
is like there is a hole in the ground with
thoughts coming out of it like water, and I
need to put my foot on it.
N.: No, it is a mirage. The number of
thoughts is like counting the waves, few or
greater, in the mirage, thinking that the desert
sand is becoming wet and that you are drowning
in it.
Q.: What you just said pointed out something
that I consider real.
N.: When you consider something to be
real and try to eliminate it at its own level, the
most for which you can hope is a change in
phenomena, in this case a subtle phenomenon
called “thought.” The Realization of the True
Self comes about by discerning what is real.
Implicit in that is the negation of all that is
unreal. It does come about by “monkeying
around” with the unreal, with the plumbing in
the mirage. (laughter)
Q.: Okay.
N.: It is like turning on and off the valves
of a mirage. (laughter)
Q.: That is exactly what I have been
doing.
N.: Is this clear?
Q.: Yes. This is clear.
N.: In the description of your experience,
you traced it to a kind of memory. The
experience is good, but you will
probably find it more fruitful to examine how
you have put together the causality. Any
description of illusion is necessarily as illusory
as the illusion, itself. Your attempt to define
it is purposeful only to the extent that it helps
you to eliminate it. To that extent, any explanation,
no matter who gives it, of how duality,
illusion, or ignorance comes to be is helpful
but will have its limitations. The limitations
are of the illusion, itself.
If you say that there is memory and then
veiling comes about. Whose memory was it?
Does the true Self have a memory? The spacelike,
timeless, location-less, unborn, uncreated
Reality has a memory? It is not so.
Q.: It does not have a mirage.
N.: If you speak of multiplicity or
projection, in this case, the mental
projection in the form of memory, of whatever
kind of memory, as having come prior to
the veiling, the causality is somewhat inverted.
It would be better to say that there is veiling,
and, because of veiling, there is then a projection
of the illusory multiplicity. You can see this
in your everyday experience. In deep sleep,
there is no projection of multiplicity. There is
no body, no mind, no world, and no experience
of any of that, but there is veiling of your
real nature. Out of sleep comes dream, and
one of those dreams you refer to as “waking.”
Out of veiling comes the projection of multiplicity,
which is an illusion.
Q.: Yes, I can see that veiling occurs and
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then there is a projection, a thought of some
kind of memory.
N.: With the idea of time superimposed
on it, you then think of it as the past and call it
“memory.”
Q.: What is this that is veiling? I do not
understand that. What is that?
N.: It is the same as the one who has it.
(silence). We can call it “misidentification”
or non-perception of your real
identity, which is your real Existence. The
Maharshi says that of all such vrtti-s, or
modes, the root is the “I.” It is the
assumption of existing as an individual, prior
to the idea of any attribute of that
individual. There is one who appears to experience
whatever the objective, or “this,” aspect
of the experience will be, be such memory or
anything else. It is he that appears as a veil for
himself, while your real Being shines, selfluminous,
without a veil and without division,
always. Inquire into that one. If there is a veil,
that veil is for a “me.” Who is that? If you
inquire in this way, you will find that there is
no substance of which to create the veil. You
cannot make darkness out of light.
(silence)
Q.: It is very clear to me that there is a
tendency of mine to explain things and then a
want to think that the explanations are real, as
if there were some value in those. It is a search
in a dream world by a dream character.
N.: The search is right, but how will you
fulfill it?
Q.: By finding out who is searching.
N.: If the desire for Liberation, the
fourth of the requisites (of the four-fold
sadhana) as a search is turned in on the one
who is as if bound, Liberation will be selfrevealed.
So, toward the conclusion of the
book, Who am I?, the Maharshi says, in
answer to the question of what is release,
Mukti, Liberation, to inquire and know the
nature of the one who is in bondage is release,
or Liberation. Why did he say that?
Q.: Why did he say that? So that the guy
could get free.
N.: (Smiling and chuckling) Yes, but
also because there is only one Self, and there
are not two of you. If there is a veil, there must
be a veil between what is veiled and the one
for whom there is a veil. This threefold division
is not true. How can there be a veil for
your Self? If it were another to be known, you
might know or not know it, but in the case of
yourself, how can you not know yourself? It is
as absurd as saying that there could be a time
when you did not exist.
Q.: Yes, it is truly absurd. Veiling is like
saying, “I did not exist for a while.”
N.: Yes, yet you are there to report on it.
However you wish to explain ignorance, or
illusion, it is fine as long as it prompts you to
inquire and thus uproot the very idea that such
a thing exists. However you explain your
bondage, though it is not really true, it is
alright if it prompts you to inquire and find out
that you have not really been bound, you have
not become a separated, individual being, but
you exist only as Being, which is
unborn, undivided, and is with no form.
(silence).
Is this clear for you?
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Q.: Yes, it is all about inquiry.
N.: Yes, there is no substitute for knowing
yourself.
Q.: Yes, it is very fundamental.
N.: You have now become a fundamentalist.
(laughter)
Another Q.: Pure Consciousness and
Being are not mine, not exclusively mine. Part
of our problem is vijnana. We always need to
leap across. What we see around us is an
illusion not because it is not real but because
we don’t see it correctly. Isn’t it true?
N.: If we saw correctly, how would we
see it?
Q.: As our Self. Seeing stops. It is identity.
N.: Alright. The Self is not multiple or
divided.
Q.: Yet there is a truth to individuality.
N.: In what does that truth lie?
Q.: In pure Existence-Consciousness.
N.: Which transcends thoughts of
individuality, division, or duality.
Q.: I have to use thoughts and words
because I do not have vijnana now. When we
get to the state of pure Being-
Consciousness, that is not the end. We do not
cease to exist, and this universe does not cease
to exist. So, why?
N.: Why what?
Q.: Why is it? Why did it manifest? Why
did we come into it?
N.: The idea of “us” who come into it is
not being identified with pure Being-
Consciousness, but as something else. If you
would inquire into that something else, the
root of your question, or doubt, would be
eliminated. You would have the vijnana, the
Awareness or Knowledge, for which you are
searching. In That, there is just the Self, and to
say it is all of this or that none of this is and
only That alone is means the same thing. After
all, when it is said that Brahman is all this, it
does not mean that there should be any
emphasis on “all this.” It means that just
Brahman is.
Q.: It is not an emphasis. It seems to me
that the manifested is from Ananda. It couldn’t
be or express itself otherwise, if it didn’t
have a delight behind it.
N.: Delight is inherent in itself. One
speaks of manifestation from some sup-posedly
manifested point and not from the Self,
itself. So, first, realize the Self, and then see if
there is a universe or not.
Q.: Okay.
N.: Otherwise, whatever is the
definition of the viewer will necessarily get
into his view.
Q.: But, on the way, don’t we have a
responsibility too, for (pausing); if we hurt
ourselves, we usually stop it, unless there is
something wrong. There is hurt going on and
to not do something, well, evil succeeds when
good does nothing. You can say that there is
no evil but…
N.: It is not necessary to say that. “Evil
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succeeds when good does nothing.” Similarly,
ignorance seems to prevail in one’s own mind
if one does not employ Knowledge, which is
wholly good. Knowledge alone destroys
ignorance. Nothing else will do so. Another
part of ignorance will not do so. This
Knowledge is rooted in yourself. That Self,
which is also Knowledge, is the very root of
all that is true, good, and beautiful. When we
find that root, we find that it alone is, and there
is the utter destruction of the very cause of
delusion, which, in its grossest form,
manifests as what you call “evil.”
Q.: Could you clarify that a little more?
N.: About what do you have a question?
Q.: The question that is hard to say is the
good question.
N.: (laughing) Okay.
Q.: On some level, there has to be a
necessity for what we call evil. No, even that
is not right. What we call “evil” is not evil but
a consequence of being in ignorance.
N.: Yes. The denser the ignorance, the
cruder is its form. When its form is very grossly
manifested due to the grossest of action,
you call it “evil.”
Q.: But isn’t it our responsibility?
N.: There is a responsibility to attain true
Knowledge, which is the very root of all that
you call good.
Q.: Let’s make it very practical.
Someone comes to us and says he is going to
kill us, just because he feels like it. What is
our responsibility in that situation?
N.: To abide as immortal Being, whether
you choose to stop his action or not.
Continuing with the delusion that you are
mortal, that you are the body and that you can
be slain, won’t help the situation.
Q.: I don’t have that delusion.
N.: Okay.
Q.: But it is a choice to allow or not to
allow, to come back or not to come back.
There is a loss of allowing if something can be
done.
N.: Yes, you are not required to be
indolent. Knowledge is transcendence and not
indolence. Is that what you are asking?
Q.: Okay.
N.: We can look at the lives of those who
have realized the highest Truth. Sankara and
the Maharshi declare that the Self is and this
entire universe is not. Yet, if you look at their
manifested lives, how much good is there!
Q.: It is hard for us to see all the good
that they did.
N.: We could go for eons attempting to
describe it, and it would not be
adequate. That in itself is standing proof of
how this Self, the Knowledge of which is what
we are concerned with, is the very root of all
that is true, good, and beautiful.
Q.: Yes, it is beyond these words.
N.: It is beyond those words. It is all
peace, but it is not indolent.
Another Q.: I have deep experience, but,
then, I say to myself, “but.” You have directed
my mind inward and instructed me to inquire
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as to who has that “but.” There is always a trail
or trace of that one. There is always something
from which to trace it inwards. I am seeing that
there is something to be eliminated.
N.: Alright. So, the Maharshi says that
the ego is a ghost with no form of its own, that
it feeds on forms, but when sought, it runs
away.
Q.: If it leaves a form, it is good to eliminate
that as a possibility.
N.: Yes, your inquiry should always be
thorough. Both the ego notion and the apparent
definition, the form that trails
behind it, should be eliminated. How would
the trail remain if there is no one who has it?
Q.: (laughing). It would not be possible.
N.: If you do not allow for the trails, how
would a ghost with no form of its own survive?
Q.: There is that link. The ability to
inquire is determined by how little one’s mind
is going outward. If my mind is going outward,
there is no way that I can look more
deeply into myself.
N.: Isn’t it the other way around? If you
are looking at yourself, there is no way that
your mind can go outward.
Q.: (laughing) Oh yes!
N.: Outward is the projection of
illusion within the mind itself, which is then
erroneously regarded as if external.
Q.: (quiet for awhile) When I say that I
want to find out who I am, the ability to do so
seems to become better as I eliminate what is
objective. My mind becomes more focused
and clearer. It could be more focused. It seems
to me to be a matter of eliminating more and
continuing to look.
N.: When you focus, is such a matter of
thinking a particular way, or is it something
deeper?
Q.: The essence is always deeper. Maybe
it is a byproduct?
N.: The thoughts may coincide with or
express the essence. Is the essence a thought
or something else?
Q.: The essence is deeper than thought.
If it were thought, that would be no good for
that is part of what is being eliminated.
N.: There would be no freedom or real
bliss in that.
Q.: Yes. It seems as if it is a byproduct.
Is that true that there is always the focus when
it… it seems to go hand-in-hand, but doesn’t
always. Sometimes, the Truth comes shining
through, even when the mind is not really
focused.
N.: So, concentration, or focus, in as
much as that is regarded as a particular line of
thinking, is not the determining factor of
Knowledge, is it? When you inquire, is it
because you think along a particular line?
Does that constitute the inquiry? Or, is something
else occurring?
Q.: I still believe that it is thinking along
a certain line.
N.: What is your experience? Is that true?
Q.: No, it isn’t true.
N.: You just made quick work of your
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belief. (laughter)
Q.: That is part of the whole object-ification
that is being jettisoned. The mind’s
focusing is not necessarily a problem. It cannot
obstruct what is real. It doesn’t seem
to… (pauses)
N.: Is there anything obstructing
Realization? The power of your belief is
rooted in yourself. That is a reason why
belief can be a wonderful thing. What
obstructs Realization? What makes you think
that you are not realized? What makes you
think that there is someone, you, who is an
unrealized entity, or a being?
Q.: Do you want the list? (laughter)
N.: Hmm, hmm. All of it.
Q.: (laughing) It is a fictitious puff that
does not last very long. It does not hold up. I
could list things, but they don’t have much
weight. It doesn’t even look that interesting.
(laughter).
N.: How can an uninteresting,
fictitious, ephemeral “puff,” as you put it, be
an obstruction to the Realization of the Self?
Q.: Uh, maybe that is the way all
illusion is, actually. It really is very boring.
(laughter). There is certainly not anything
juicy or great in it.
N.: There is no happiness in it.
Q.: But…
N.: Okay, it is juiceless.
Q.: No divine nectar there. (laughter)
N.: Juiceless, essenceless, tasteless.
(laughter)
Q.: Unreal. Yet, for some reason, I
believe that there is reality, myself, there.
N.: What is the basis of that belief?
Q.: The basis must be myself.
N.: How can you, yourself, be an
obstruction to the Realization of your own
Self? It appears as that, because there is nothing
else, yet how can that occur? How can
the Unborn give birth to illusion?
Q.: I don’t know. A bad habit?
N.: A habit has to be for someone.
Whose habit?
Q.: Yes, it cannot be for anything grosser.
It won’t be for the body, and it won’t be for
the mind, even though it seems that it partakes
of the mind.
N.: All that is imagined. You do not
become this thing or that thing. You cannot be
this of be that. Just Being alone is.
(silence)
Another Q.: I wonder how the sages use
words. Words are limited. They say to consider
the nature of existence, the nature
Consciousness, the place of, and the source of.
I am curious about the nature. It turns me
inward when I consider what “knowing”
means, what is the nature of Consciousness,
and if reality is existing, it must know itself.
So, if I inquire, I am turning toward Reality,
which knows itself. The ego could be defined
as an illusion that does not know itself.
Knowing of itself is the oneness of Existence
and Consciousness, because the knowing of
itself is the essence of real Existence.
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N.: You have answered your own question
splendidly. (laughter)
Q.: I try to take the hints of the words of
the sages and follow where they are pointing to.
N.: To That. (laughter)
Q.: I could take the words for
granted, but I try not to and ask, “What is the
nature of knowing?”
N.: When you so inquire, what is your
experience?
Q.: At the very least, it is a very
inward direction.
N.: Alright. So, the words of the wise
serve that purpose. In the inward direction lies
Silent Truth. The words of the wise shine with
the power of Silent Truth. Silent Truth is
comprehended by the Silent Truth, itself. So,
there is no distinction between the wise and
their Wisdom, or between the one who
instructs and the one who receives instruction.
The teacher, teaching, and the taught are all
one and the same thing. The teaching is not a
set of ideas. The one who instructs must
necessarily be identified with That.
Otherwise, how will it be clear instruction?
The one who understands is, himself, That,
which is the significance of the teaching.
Thus, the Upanishad says, “Tat tvam asi, That
you are.” That aphorism is the instruction.
Q.: If an aspirant felt that there were
partial understanding and partial notunderstanding,
the practice would be to
inquire and eliminate the not-understanding?
N.: Alright. How would he do that? Does
not his non-understanding have its basis in
what he regards as himself? So, he would
discern what he defines himself as and then
inquire to discern whether the definition were
true or false.
Q.: And the partial understanding would
serve as encouragement and intensity to
continue inward.
N.: Yes, it may seem that way at the outset,
but really what is true is selfevident.
Even if we speak of what is known
partially, that which is true is self-evident and
does not really need strengthening. Your effort
is primarily the destruction of ignorance.
Knowledge, being the substrate, is already
solid. If it seems that knowledge is unsteady, it
is really the unsteadiness of ignorance prevailing
that is the cause. We destroy the ignorance,
and the Knowledge is said to become
strong. Because of the longstanding habit of
regarding oneself as an ego entity, or a bound
individual, the wise and the scriptures say to
you to make the Knowledge strong, because
you are looking at it from the perspective of
being a non-knower. How do you make the
Knowledge strong? By inquiring to know who
the knower is. In doing so, the
ignorance is shattered. That which is changeful
is that which is unreal. The
unreal alone can be destroyed, and the changeful
alone is changed. The unchanging Reality,
which is the abode of Knowledge, seems to
become steadier. Really, it is unmoving.
If you examine your experience, you
will see that you are unsteady at those times
of, and proportionately to, your misidentification.
If the misidentification is regarding
Being, you will take an ego “I” to be real, or
there will be the ideas of “I am a body,” or “I
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am in a body,” and such. If the misidentification
concerns your own Consciousness, you
will take a mind to be existent, though there is
no such thing. Likewise is it with the senses. If
misident-ification involves the Ananda aspect,
or Bliss, you will become attached to something
in an external world that is actually only
imagined in your own mind.
Such seems to create unsteadiness in
the Truth, but the Truth does not
become unsteady. To regain the innate steadiness,
destroy the illusion. Is this
partially understood? (laughter)
Q.: (laughing) I think I fully understood
that partial understanding is to be removed.
(laughter).
N.: Okay, that is good.
(Then followed a recitation in Sanskrit
and English of verses from the Annapurna
Upanishad)
(Silence)
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om
From Yoga Vasishta
Vasishta continued:
The Self cannot be cut into pieces. It cannot
be burnt. It cannot be dried up. It has no
sorrow. It is eternal. It is in everything. Its
stability is like a rock. It is immovable.
To fall into illusion, to make others fall
into