10

RESTING IN REALITY

Q: You seem to identify rest with the Supreme State?

M: There is rest as a state of mind (chidaram) and there is rest as a state of being (atmaram). The former comes and goes, while the true rest is the very heart of action. Unfortunately, language is a mental tool and works only in opposites. 

Q: As a witness, you are working or at rest?

M: Witnessing is an experience and rest is freedom from experience. 

Q: Can't they co-exist, as the tumult of the waves and the quiet of the deep co-exist in the ocean. 

M: Beyond the mind, there is no such thing as experience. Experience is a dual state. You cannot talk of reality as an experience. Once this is understood, you will no longer look for being and becoming as separate and opposite. 

In reality, they are one and inseparable, like roots and branches of the same tree. Both can exist only in the light of consciousness, which again, arises in the wake of the sense 'I am'. This is the primary fact. If you miss it, you miss all. 

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT ch 27