When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?”
Question: When we talk of helping humanity, we mean a struggle against disorder and suffering.
Maharaj: You merely talk of helping. Have you ever helped, really helped, a single man? Have you ever put one soul beyond the need of further help? Can you give a man character, based on full realization of his duties and opportunities at least, if not on the insight into his true being?
When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?
Q: The adequate supply of means of livelihood is good for all. You may be God himself, but you need a well-fed body to talk to us.
M: It is you that need my body to talk to you.I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own.
You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, Chapter 68: Seek the Source of Consciousness .
(photo: Buddhist novice in temple, Myanmar by Sasin Tipchai)
Question: When we talk of helping humanity, we mean a struggle against disorder and suffering.
Maharaj: You merely talk of helping. Have you ever helped, really helped, a single man? Have you ever put one soul beyond the need of further help? Can you give a man character, based on full realization of his duties and opportunities at least, if not on the insight into his true being?
When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?
Q: The adequate supply of means of livelihood is good for all. You may be God himself, but you need a well-fed body to talk to us.
M: It is you that need my body to talk to you.I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own.
You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, Chapter 68: Seek the Source of Consciousness .
(photo: Buddhist novice in temple, Myanmar by Sasin Tipchai)
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