Nothing and Everything

Over the last 30 years I have continuously contemplated the famous quote by the great Hindu sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj, “When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love. Between these two my life turns.” To me this is the single greatest Koan regarding the direct path and awakening. My mind cannot logically reconcile the paradox in these three statements. So, I eventually surrendered to the realization that there is no paradox because there is no separation, and the key is the two words I highlighted “I am”, which is the title of Nisargadatta’s most read and quoted books, I AM, which contains this quote.

As Nisargadatta emphasizes and encourages us to experience is that the seeming paradox that revolves around the core, I AM, is just a transitory illusion of our perception (feelings)and mind. While we experience the present moment in all of its impermanence the mind grabs it and drags it into the past as something permanent, eternal. Creating permanence to this thought is the associated positive or negative feeling and as these two spin together, which is the nature of duality that Nisargadatta describes in the last sentence.

This false sense of permanence continues until either the original thought is rejected or the feeling is released. This can persist all the way to the grave when the mind is finally released and the spell broken. What is left is the simple truth of being, I AM’, which can only be experienced by conscious awareness of our true nature. Then the only constant is the reality of the present moment and the realization that below this moment there is nothing and everything.

This is as far as the great Sage of the Vedanta can take us. The rest of the way we must journey on our own. You can’t think your way there, you can’t feel your way there, you must  JUST BE!!!