Woetoe’s Reviews > I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj > Status Update

‘Q: If nature is in the mind and the mind is my own, I should be able to control nature, which is not really the case. Forces beyond my control determine my behaviour.

M: Develop the witness attitude and you will find in your own experience that detachment brings control. The state of witnessing is full of power, there is nothing passive about it.’

‘Images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material — destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence — vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: “I-am-so-and-so” obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.’

‘Find what you have never lost, find the inalienable.’

‘Q: Striving is painful.

M: You make it so by seeking results. Strive without seeking, struggle without greed.’

‘In ignorance the seer becomes the seen and in wisdom he is the seeing.’

‘Q: Why need I open my eyes to see a lovely flower and with my eyes closed I see it vaguely?

M: It is because your outer eyes are better than your inner eyes. Your mind is all turned outward. As you learn to watch your mental world, you will find it even more colourful and perfect than what the body can provide.’