Words and their Fulfillment
It was a morning when Maharaj was perhaps feeling his physical weakness a little more than usual. One could clearly notice the inexorable effects of the vile illness on his body, irrespective of his indomitable spirit. He looked frail and exhausted.
He sat in his usual place, quite still, almost immobile, totally oblivious of the pain which must certainly have been intense. Then he started talking quietly, very softly; one had to concentrate a great deal to catch his words.
What you see, said Maharaj, as my presence as a phenomenon means my absence as the noumenon. Noumenally, I can have neither presence nor absence because both are concepts. The sense of presence is the concept which turns the unicity of the Absolute into the duality of the relative. Unmanifested, I am the potential which in manifestation becomes the actual.
I wonder, Maharaj continued, if these words really convey anything to you;
are they mere words?
Of course, I don’t doubt your sincerity. You have come here — many of you from long
distances and at considerable expense — and spend quite some time sitting on the floor, which most of you are not used to; and you certainly seem to pay attention to what I say. But you must understand that unless there is a particular type of receptivity, words would only accomplish a very limited purpose. They might perhaps arouse your intellectual curiosity and titillate your desire for knowledge, but they would not open themselves up to reveal their true significance.
Now, what is this special type of receptivity? Here again one finds the endemic limitation of communication by words. Would it mean anything to you if I said that ‘you’ have come here to listen to me, but you must listen to me on the basis that this ‘you’ is wholly illusory, that there is really no ‘you’, who could listen to my words and get any benefit!
Indeed, I must go so far as to say that unless you give up your role of an individual listener expecting some benefit out of what you hear, words for you would be mere empty sounds. The obstruction preventing apperception is that although you might prepare yourself to accept the thesis that everything in the universe is illusory,
in this illusoriness you fail to include yourself!
Now, do you see the problem — or is it more a joke than a problem?
When — let me not say ‘if’ — you accept this basis for your listening, that is to say, you give up all concern for the listener wanting to be a ‘better’ individual by listening to the words and hoping to ‘work’ towards a perceptible improvement, then do you know what would happen?
Then, in that state of intuitive listening, when the ‘listener’ no longer intrudes, words would throw up and expose their subtle, inner meaning, which the ‘fasting’ or open mind will grasp and apperceive with
deep and instant conviction. And then will words have achieved even their limited fulfillment!
When the listener remains in a state of suspension without intruding on the listening as such, what in fact happens is that the relative, divided mind is automatically restrained from its natural
proclivity to engage itself in tortuous interpretation of words, and is thereby prevented from maintaining a continuous process of objectification. It is then the whole mind that is enabled to be in direct communion with both the talking and the listening as such, and thereby to bring about the Yoga of words, enabling the words to yield their innermost meaning and their most subtle significance.
~ POINTERS
FROM NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ
By Ramesh S. Balsekar
