It is 9:45 a.m., and I must publish this article by noon. My wife will shock-treat my writer-life balance if I don’t. And rightly so.
My two sons and girlfriend-in-law will visit on Wednesday for a few days to celebrate my daughter’s graduation and my birthday. As you can imagine, such a visit requires preparation and creates a long list of chores.
So, I use the same 5-min-timer technique that worked pretty well in Why Do I Still Give A Fuck? to bring me back to my chosen topic whenever I wander off.
Because wandering off, I do.
It is the reverse psychology of Pavlov’s Bell. When the bell rings, I stop my inner dog from madly digging up rabbit holes and return to the topic I originally wanted to write about. (What was it again?)
My inner dog is getting conditioned to stay out of rabbit holes
It is going badly so far. It is 10.09 am, the bell went off and was restarted four times, and I had not even started my topic. (I was sucked down the Pavlovs’ bell hole)
Ok, let’s regroup.
I need more help.
I just remembered the rules that produced one of my most liked posts, “Why Is Everyone So Fucking Stupid.” in only a few hours.
A few weeks ago someone posted tips about how to become a successful writer on Substack:
Don’t hide your anger
Make good headlines that grab attention and sum up what you feel
Write the article in less than 45 min
The problem is that I don’t feel anger today.
Hang on.
I try to squeeze some out of me.
Damn, not enough for a rant and cathartic, liberating, and angry swearing.
Everyone has probably heard of “writer’s block.”
I have the opposite disorder.
My brain looks like my garden.
Shit, that reminds me of my chores list!!!!!
It is 10.23 am, and I haven’t even started with “THE TOPIC” - “A Quiet Mind Is All I Need?”
Or maybe I have !?!?
If you replace the house in that picture with “my mind,” you get an idea of what a not-quiet mind looks like.
Meanwhile, I spend more time restarting my timer than writing about the topic.
It is 10:35 a.m., and I am starting to stress out. I can’t return to “the topic” because I haven’t even started one. It is not working.
When I wake up, I have about 27 ideas about what I want to write within the first 18 minutes. Some people think writing a good article is about being creative.
It is the opposite. It is all about weeding. And I hate weeding.
It is all about radical pruning. And I am too lazy to prune.
Maybe I should leave the writing to someone who has a very quiet mind and actually knows what he is talking about.
Problem solved:
Thank you, Mr Maharaj, for helping me out and keep my wife happy, too:
Questioner: I am not well. I feel rather weak. What am I to do?
Maharaj: Who is unwell, you or the body?
Q: My body, of course.
M: Yesterday you felt well. What felt well?
Q: The body.
M: You were glad when the body was well and you are sad when the body is unwell. Who is glad one day and sad the next?
Q: The mind.
M: And who knows the variable mind?
Q: The mind.
M: The mind is the knower. Who knows the knower?
I hope you don’t mind if I add some comments for people who are new to non-dual teachings (Advaita Vedanta), an approximately 1200-year-old Hindu spiritual practice that produced a long line of enlightened masters.
What does he mean by “who knows the knower?”
Socrates discovered the same observable fact when he explained: “I know that I know.”
“What? You need an example?”
“For fuck sake, it is 11.05 am. Stupid me. Why did I interrupt?”
Ok, let’s look at my chores list for inspiration.
You mow the lawns and daydream of eating blueberry ice cream while doing so. You are utterly and blissfully lost in this mother of all daydreams.
But no matter how much you enjoy your illusionary blueberry ice cream, unlike in real dreams, in daydreams, you still know on a subconscious level that you are mowing the lawns. The proof lies in the fact, that you later can recall that you mowed the lawns without looking at them.
In short, you remember.
To remember something, you have to notice something first. There are thousands of things going on around us and within us that we don’t notice at all, which is probably a good thing. It saves us from mental overload.
Fuck, why can’t you just give me your nipple and leave me alone?
But what we notice, we can remember.
This is the second “I know” in “I know that I know”.
It happens automatically and unconsciously. We just notice important things without conscious effort because that keeps us well and alive. If you don’t notice that you are moving the lawns, you might lose a few toes in the process….….ouch.
Ok, are you still with me, or have you escaped this lecture by sneaking back into the blueberry ice cream daydream?
Bad girl (Yes, girls sometimes mow lawns too).
Bad boy.
So you literally can taste the blueberries, feel the soft, creamy bliss sliding down your throat, noting your tastebuds exploding in orgasmic waves, see the ……and then the bell rings.
Ding, ding, ding…….Fuuuuuuck.
Not my bell, this time. “The knower” rings the bell. The mysterious knower.
So, who the fuck is the mysterious knower?
Only God knows.
Literally.
Because:
He, or better, “it” just does.
Obviously, GOD is not a human with a gender.
In other words, you are suddenly back in the garden, mowing the lawns. But this time, without the ice cream daydream. You not only mow and know it (because you haven’t mowed your tows off yet), but you know that you know that you mow.
I love that
You know that you know that you mow
Markutes
Easy, right? Clear as mud.
Ok, there is a valid reason why Nisargadatta has several books to his name while I haven’t.
Q: Does not the knower know itself?
M: The mind is discontinuous. Again and again it blanks out, like in sleep or swoon, or distraction. There must be something continuous to register discontinuity.
When you reflect later that day while sitting in an ice cream parlour eating blueberry ice cream, you will not only remember the mowing but also the fact that there were gaps in remembering things. In other words, there are countless daydreams and mental distractions where you are completely “gone”.
So you remember that you don’t remember.
The mind comes and goes.
Something notices the mind’s coming and going; therefore, this can’t be the mind itself.
So what is it?
Well, that’s what we are after here. If we find the unmoving background that observes the moving mind, we find everything.
If you find that, you find God.
I know it's a bit harder than just believing in God.
Sorry.
There's nothing wrong with believing in a God, of course.
The only tiny little problem is that believing is not knowing.
By definition, believing is the opposite of knowing.
If we absolutely know something - like loving blueberry ice cream more than mowing the lawns - you don’t need to believe it.
Claro? Si?
But our questioner here, like almost all of us (and especially Sam Harris), thinks everything is only mind:
Q: The mind remembers. This stands for continuity.
M: Memory is always partial, unreliable and evanescent. It does not explain the strong sense of identity pervading consciousness, the sense 'I am'. Find out what is at the root of it.
Q: However deeply I look, I find only the mind. Your words 'beyond the mind' give me no clue.
M: While looking with the mind, you cannot go beyond it. To go beyond, you must look away from the mind and its contents.
Q: In what direction am I to look?
M: All directions are within the mind! I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling 'I am'. The 'I am' is not a direction. It is the negation of all direction.
Not coincidentally, the original Jewish name for God is “I AM,” as handed down in the Old Testament story about Moses and the burning bush.
The thought and sense of “I Am” do not refer to ourselves as individual persons defined by random and ever-changing attributes like “I am Susi”, “I am 30 years odl”, “I am beautiful today”, “I am a professor in nutrions writing a paper about the correlation between loving blueberry icecream and the ability to orgasm three times a day” and so on.
No.
The thought and sense of “I am” relate to something much deeper—the sense and undeniable knowing that we exist. We know that we “are.” Whether you love blueberry ice cream or not, you still are. Everyone is.
The statement “I am not” or “I don’t exist” makes no sense because somebody needs to exist first to say that, automatically disproving the statement.
In one sense, the statement “I am” is the only true statement we can ever make. Everything else can be negated. (Time is running, and the bell rings, so I let you chew over this on your own)
If your brain feels slightly foggy by now - have some ice cream. Our brains use around 20% of our daily carbs.
Q: Where does it all lead me?
M: When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.
Q: What difference does it make?
M: The mind is no more. There is only love in action.
Q: How shall I recognise this state when I reach it?
M: There will be no fear.
(Excerpt from “I AM THAT”. Free PDF download here.)
No fear? I am love?
I take that, thank you.
Where can I sign up?
There is much more, of course, but we first need to stock up on more ice-cream.
And it is 11.57 am
The great thing about citing Nisargadatta Maharaj is that you can start and stop wherever you are. Every sentence or paragraph feels rock solid and dripping with lucidity, profound meaning, and un-intellectual pure wisdom….
He was very fortunate, though.
He grew up with almost no education and money in a small village in the backwoods of Ratnagiri, but “he was gifted with an inquisitive mind, bubbling over with questions of all sorts.”
He didn’t attend indoctrinating education factories to prune all critical thinking away to fill society with useful idiots.
No Christians or other religious dumb wits got their claws on him and brainwashed him with ideas about God.
His father died when he was 18, throwing the family of seven into an existential crisis. But they managed to overcome it. He lived an ordinary life for many years:
Childhood, youth, marraiage, progeny - Maruti lived the usual humdrum and eventless life of a common man until his middle age, with no inkling at all of the sainthood that was to follow.
Then, he met his Guru. He trusted him unconditionally and followed his instructions to the point. The Guru died soon after their first and only meeting, but the stage was set.
Early in his practice he started having visions and occasionally even fell into trances. Something exploded in him, as it were, giving birth to a cosmic consciousness, a sense of eternal life. The identity of Maruti, the petty shopkeeper, dissolved and the illuminating personality of Sri Nisargadatta emerged.
There are, […], seers, teachers and revealers who, while apparently living in the same world, live simultaneously in another world also -- the world of cosmic consciousness, effulgent with infinite knowledge.
After his illuminating experience Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj started living such a dual life.
He conducted his shop, but ceased to be a profit-minded merchant.
Later, abandoning his family and business he became a mendicant, a pilgrim over the vastness and variety of the Indian religious scene. He walked barefooted on his way to the Himalayas where he planned to pass the rest of his years in quest of a eternal life.
But he soon retraced his steps and came back home comprehending the futility of such a quest.
Eternal life, he perceived, was not to be sought for; he already had it. Having gone beyond the I-am-the-body idea, he had acquired a mental state so joyful, peaceful and glorious that everything appeared to be worthless compared to it. He had attained self-realisation
And so can everyone else; Nisargadatta does not tire of reminding everyone.
Yep, that would be you.
It would also include you over there.
And you, in the background, shaking your head in disbelief.
“Me, enlightened? Shut the gate, mate, will you?”
I have better things to do. I have to mow the lawns. And eat ice cream.
“But, admittingly, “no fear” does sound enticing…..”
I wonder how his wife and family feel.
Or just order it online