Post by Figgles on Jan 28, 2018 16:07:03 GMT
Just read this again...(It is sooooo good!!...spells it out so perfectly)...and had the thought; This could have been written by Abe-Hicks...the wordage differs slightly, but same message when it comes to seeing that the world is not broken, does not need fixing...the system does not need fixing, Your wonky views do!:
Nisargadatta: You can spend an eternity looking elsewhere for Truth and love, intelligence and goodwill, imploring God and man – all in vain. You must begin in yourself, with yourself – this is the inexorable law. You cannot change the image without changing the face. First realise that your world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right – mentally and emotionally. The physical will follow automatically. You talk so much of reforms: economic, social, political. Leave alone the reforms and mind the reformer. What kind of world can a man create who is stupid, greedy, heartless?
Question: If we have to wait for a change of heart, we shall have to wait indefinitely. Yours is a counsel of perfection, which is also a counsel of despair. When all are perfect, the world will be perfect. What useless truism!
Nisargadatta: I did not say it. I only said: You cannot change the world before changing yourself. I did not say – before changing everybody. It is neither necessary, nor possible to change others. But if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen!
Question: How can you be so sure of yourself? How do you know that what you say is true?
Nisargadatta: It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you. All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world.
Question: So many saints and mystics lived and died. They did not change my world.
Nisargadatta: How could they? Your world is not theirs, nor is their yours.
Question: Surely there is a factual world common to all.
Nisargadatta: The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives, a mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little, our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your own mind and for this you must go beyond it.
Question: If we have to wait for a change of heart, we shall have to wait indefinitely. Yours is a counsel of perfection, which is also a counsel of despair. When all are perfect, the world will be perfect. What useless truism!
Nisargadatta: I did not say it. I only said: You cannot change the world before changing yourself. I did not say – before changing everybody. It is neither necessary, nor possible to change others. But if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen!
Question: How can you be so sure of yourself? How do you know that what you say is true?
Nisargadatta: It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you. All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world.
Question: So many saints and mystics lived and died. They did not change my world.
Nisargadatta: How could they? Your world is not theirs, nor is their yours.
Question: Surely there is a factual world common to all.
Nisargadatta: The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives, a mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little, our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your own mind and for this you must go beyond it.
