Find Yourself First, And Endless Blessings Will Follow

All our problems are self-inflicted. The good news: If we can create them, we can also destroy them.

Diogenes - maybe the most fearless and true dissident that ever lived

Diogenes is a man who found his true self. He lost all fear of social judgement and exclusion, hardship or death and was truly free.

When he lived as a beggar in a clay wine barrel, Alexander the Great, the most powerful man on earth, visited him in Corinth.

Such was his fame that an emperor travelled to see a half-naked beggar.

Thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, Alexander asked if he could do him a favour, to which Diogenes replied: “Yes, stand out of my sunlight.” Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.”

Imagine Elon Musk or Donald Trump doing that. No way. Men like Diogenes seem extinct, as are rulers like Alexander the Great. Diogenes was one of maybe a few philosophers who lived what they taught. But then again, he was actually a mystic who posed as a philosopher.

Diogenes thought Greece was very corrupt and morality was at an all-time low. He was famous for walking through the city in bright sunlight with a lantern, searching for “a man” worth this title. I wonder what stunts he would perform nowadays to tell the world how stupid, mediocre, soulless, and honourless it had become.

This article is very long, so settle back if the topic attracts you. I put a lot of time into making my last long-form article, I hope. I am getting tired of repeating myself. But I said that before…..I cover the topics below:

Why “I AM THAT” is the purest and most profound spiritual book available to mankind (…and why the Bible and other spiritual books are over-rated, mediocre, and infiltrated by human garbage and propaganda)

The astounding effects of reading a true spiritual master

How psychedelics enhanced my spiritual understanding

The most egocentric idea in the universe: I have free will

How our minds fool us into thinking that we make progress in our “spiritual work” or “religous beliefs” to uphold another illusion to avoid ego-death

How to disnguish between true and false spiritual teachers

The illusion of “spiritual progress”

That “good” people usually have bigger more persistent ego-stuctures than “bad” people

An example of the deconstruction of a spiritual ego by a master

That “peace of mind” is impossible - mind is restless by default

That inner peace is the default mode of our true selves

That spiritual knowledge doesn’t help us to find our true selves

That AI will never be able to outsmart or manipulate a self-realized person

That true, everlasting freedom and peace can only be realized by surrendering all motivation, by surrendering the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain.

About to not attempt to help another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.

That all excistence is painful - it can’t be helped. Accepting this, then ignoring it, then foccusing on finding your true self is the only remedy

And more

“I AM THAT” - the purest and most profound spiritual book available to mankind

Last night, I read a few paragraphs in “I AM THAT” by Nisargadatta Maharaj and then fell asleep. I love it when that happens. It stops me from overthinking it, and often, it gets processed unconsciously in my sleep, and I wake up in good spirits and a bit wiser, so it feels.

I then often have the urge to share. Not to relay knowledge but to share the joy that deep insights can provide.

However, I know from past attempts that putting them into my own words often ruins these insides, as it is a tremendous skill to express something profound intellectually and conceptually. That’s where metaphors, poetry, and art sometimes bridge the abyss. But I am currently neither an artist nor a poet.

Still, I have the urge to share, hoping that it lifts others from our mundane materialistic world as much as it lifts me. So, I feel compelled to try again and trust that I must live out this urge, no matter what.

Nisargadatta's teachings are conducted exclusively through dialogue with genuine seekers who visited him in India to ask their pressing existential and spiritual questions. There are no theories, no preaching, and no passing on of knowledge. All these quotes are part of a real recorded conversation that once happened. Almost all the questions are timeless and have been asked by seekers since the first human stared into the universe above and wondered who she/he really was.

Unlike the Bible and many other religious and spiritual scripts, we are privileged to access the untainted, pure source of the highest spiritual teaching. The conversations were recorded on a tape recorder in the 1970s and early 1980s. (He died in 1981.)

The only interference lies in the translation from Nisargadatta’s spoken native language into written English. Even with the best translation available, this can change the meaning slightly.

However, we are very fortunate that the translator, Maurice Freeman, was also considered an enlightened master. This made “I AM THAT” one of the purest sources of spiritual knowledge available to mankind. That’s why Douwe Tiemersma, Philosophical Faculty Erasmus of the Universiteit Rotterdam, Holland - in his foreword - states:

That there should be yet another addition of I AM THAT is not surprising, for the sublimity of the words spoken by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, their directness and the lucidity with which they refer to the Highest have already made this book a literature of paramount importance. In fact, many regard it as the only book of spiritual teaching really worth studying.

I agree. I haven’t felt I need to read anything else in the past ten years. And I read many different spiritual books before that, including the Bible. (One of the worst in my experience, and I explain below)

Indeed, the above quote will offend many Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and other religious script readers worldwide. But they shouldn’t be offended. This is not a criticism or a putting down of the teachings of Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha or other outstanding spiritual prophets and masters.

It simply refers to the purity of the teachings passed on. Initially, all the teachings of spiritual masters were equally pure and true—different expressions of the same ultimate truth about the nature of reality. They were in complete harmony with each other.

The original teachings can be compared to a crystal-clear and pure water source—a mountain spring. As soon as it starts its journey to the ocean, this purest of waters will wash out minerals and dirt from the natural river banks.

Further down, it enters agricultural territory, where the water absorbs all sorts of chemicals and natural fertilizers. Then, it flows through cities, and we all know how it gets further polluted. By the time it enters the ocean, this water has little in common with the sources anymore.

The same happened to the once pure and actual teachings of our great masters. Yes, they still contain the original wisdom, and a few gifted spiritual chemists will still be able to separate the pure water from the toxicity of mankind that polluted the original wisdom.

But the vast majority of seekers won’t have these skills.

All these books are polluted by man-made, mind-based additions to serve a worldly agenda or inferior moral considerations. In short, the highest wisdom of a few extraordinary men gets watered down and spoiled by egocentrics who think they can improve on it. The sheer number of different authors who cobbled together and repeatedly amended the Bible over the past Millena, claiming to know what Jesus said and preached, despite living decades and centuries later, proves my point.

Only yesterday, I read (if true) an extreme example of this process. Some mentally deranged Israeli protesters demanded the right to rape Palestinian prisoners because some holy Jewish book says so as if any true prophet in union with God would ever suggest such a mad thing.

This mechanism has rendered most of these religious scripts not only useless but hazardous. Over time, humans have intoxicated the pure wisdom of the source with selfish toxins and turned them into instruments of manipulation, power and inhumane brutality.

That’s why I urge all authentic and genuine spiritual seekers, no matter which prophet or God they seek out, to consider the above and find pure sources of spiritual wisdom untainted by the divisive toxicity of the human mind.

Hence, my love for “I AM THAT.” It is not that Nisargadatta says anything new or different from what the Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, Laotze, Meister Eckhard, and many other enlightened beings ever said. There is only one truth. But due to the divisive nature of our minds that we need to communicate this truth, each of them uses different words to express the same eternal truth. Unenlightened egocentric people then use this difference in expression to imply a difference in truth and start wars over it.

I got sidetracked from my original ideas of what I wanted to write, but that is okay. After all, I must remind myself and everyone else that I am writing these words, but I do not invent or create them. No writer does. They simply flow through us from the collective unconscious.

Thank you for reading so far. I am glad to present you with a snippet of one of the purest sources of spiritual wisdom available to mankind. Reflecting on this gives me goosebumps, and I feel incredibly privileged to have access to it.

The astounding effects of reading a true spiritual master

Reading pure sources of spiritual wisdom for the first time is often an extraordinary and sometimes unsettling experience. This is normal.

When I read “I AM THAT” for the first time ten years ago, I felt I “understood” or could relate to maybe 3% of what I read. So many things Nisargadatta said felt utterly nuts, even mad. He turned so many conventional wisdoms on its head. (The excerpt below is one example of it - the claim that Harta Yoga gives you inner peace)

And yet, very strangely, I believed every word he said, even though I did not understand it, and it did not make any sense to me. I never doubted the truth of what he said. I couldn’t come up with one sign or reason why he would lie or deceive me. I only doubted myself for not getting it. This initial instinct was soon rewarded.

I would read strange, mad-sounding paragraphs desperately and unsuccessfully trying to make sense of them. I couldn’t. But then, suddenly and most unexpectedly, these words were remembered in the most bizarre situations, and they profoundly “clicked” on a deep intuitive level, bypassing rational thought. Suddenly, they were incredibly significant and released deep joy and peace within me.

Often, the “clicks” were layered. When I wasn’t ready for the most profound ultimate truth of a statement, I was given a “watered-down” and less potent version of it that my limited mind and heart could handle and integrate without freaking out.

How psychedelics enhanced my spiritual understanding

A few years later, I started to experiment with a range of psychedelics and other spiritual drugs in a very intentional and guided manner and “clicks” would explode like fireworks in a multidimensional manner my mind hadn’t developed enough to express coherently.

Only after a “click” would a “right” action with a lasting change in my life follow.

This pulverized my learned belief that we have free will and agency.

It introduced me to universal flow states, where “for” and “against” are happily abandoned for the sense of being an observer in awe and one with a pure universal “functioning”.

I recognized and accepted that the events affecting my life simply happened. That I make them happen or avoid them from happening, I saw as false and a pure illusion created by an egoic mind. My mind filters and reduces the trillions of causes and effects that create the next moment and selects a handful of ego-based causes to justify its own existence and the illusionary idea of free will.

Free Will

If we have free will, as the whole world claims, why would we live the way we do? Wouldn’t each of us free-will ourselves into a better life? That’s when most free will enthusiasts start to make concessions: “Ok, yes, it is not only us. The universe and cause and effect do have some influence as well.”

Some influence? So we have the whole universe and trillions squared by trillions of multi-dimensional cause-and-effect relationships happening since the beginning of time, all affecting each other on one side. And then we have little smartarse Willie, 1 eight billionth of mankind living on a tiny speck of earth, who thinks that he is deciding the overwhelming majority of his fate with his superpowers of free will?

The truth is that we don’t have free will. The truth is we “think” we have free will. It is probably the most extensive ego trip there is. If you want to make the Gods roll around in fits of laughter, tell them about your plans.

Of course, we do have a will, but it is not free. As Schopenhauer said, “We can do what we will, but we can’t will what we will.”

In other words, our hidden or uncontrollable desires, fears, and unconscious motivations determine what we do next, not our free will. Why else would anyone be bogged down in a panic attack or any other miserable state? Free will is such an obvious logical fallacy that it is mind-boggling how we ever got along.

I am digressing, but I quickly want to throw in one possible theory: Is it propaganda to make people feel better about their miserable existence? A beacon of hope?

The American dream and all those billionaires are built on the idea that we can achieve everything we want. This makes millions of people work themselves into the ground for the profit of top dogs. The one in a million that makes it is then portrayed as the proof of the theory, while the 999.999.999 people with broken health, families and dreams are conveniently forgotten.

Back to spiritual awakenings. Many realise then that we don’t exist as separated individuals. We only think we exist as separate individuals.

The moment we experience unfiltered reality—only once—this illusion is temporarily shattered, and it becomes obvious that this illusion of separation is the root of all our suffering.

Habit pulls us back into this limited illusionary ego-based existence pretty soon after. Still, we can’t unsee what we have seen, and that is when the so-called spiritual journey starts, only that it isn’t a journey. It is, and it isn’t. It is complicated. In reality it isn’t. No time and space is involved. We were right there in our awakening. It just happened. No journey or progress was needed. We fell into the true reality of ourselves. This reality was always there, is always there. Right now. Nothing needs to be done or developed.

It is the mind—after the fact—that grabs the pure experience and turns it into a spiritual ego trip, making grandiose plans about what to read and do to achieve it permanently one day. By doing so, it pushes back its own ego death.

Enough of my half-baked ideas and experiences. It's time to hand over to the real deal. Nisargadatta.

In this conversation, a yoga teacher from Sweden claims that practising Hatha Yoga gives him more peace of mind. Most Westerners who have tried a bit of Yoga but have no clue what it really means nod in agreement. But it turns out that this kind of Yoga is another way of keeping the good man away from his true self.

Questioner: I am a Swede by birth. Now I am teaching Hatha Yoga in Mexico and in the States.

Maharaj: Where did you learn it?

Q: I had a teacher in the States, an Indian Swami.

M: What did it give you?

Q: It gave me good health and a means of livelihood.

M: Good enough. Is it all you want?

Q: I seek peace of mind. I got disgusted with all the cruel things done by the so-called Christians in the name of Christ. For some time I was without religion. Then I got attracted to Yoga.

M: What did you gain?

Q: I studied the philosophy of Yoga and it did help me.

M: In what way did it help you? By what signs did you conclude that you have been helped?

Q: Good health is something quite tangible.

M: No doubt it is very pleasant to feel fit. Is pleasure all you expected from Yoga?

Q: The joy of well-being is the reward of Hatha Yoga. But Yoga in general yields more than that. It answers many questions.

M: What do you mean by Yoga?

Q: The whole teaching of India -- evolution, re-incarnation, karma and so on.

M: All right, you got all the knowledge you wanted. But in what way are you benefited by it?

Q: It gave me peace of mind

So far, so good. Now, the Master starts his work. The prime task of a spiritual master is to destroy mental illusions, no matter how seemingly spiritually advanced they appear and whether they make us feel good or bad.

True and false masters

This is the difference between a false and a true master. A false master wants to make people feel good, so they admire and like him, which will feed his spiritual ego. They avoid the truth because it often hurts the ego before its benefits are understood. Hurt egos won’t stay with masters who hurt them.

True masters couldn’t care less if a disciple stays, likes or admires them. They couldn’t care less if people bad-mouthed, smeared or hated them. They neither need to be liked nor understood. It is all the same to them. They are beyond everchanging human idiosyncratic tendencies. They also don’t care about ever-changing human-made morals, laws, and social conventions.

That doesn’t mean that they are amoral. They radiate a natural, timeless morality guided by the principle “first do no harm.” True masters stand alone and beyond. Their supreme task is to liberate humans from the illusions of the mind.

Egos can be “bad” and “good” people.

This Swede is a particularly stubborn example of how his cunning mind creates this illusion of “peace of mind through Harta Yoga.” But not only that. This mind also creates this subtle “spiritual ego,” a sense of false superiority and security that will ultimately keep him in this illusion of separation by believing he is somebody doing something “good.”

Most people associate “ego” with negative traits such as selfishness, anger, and arrogance in the sense of “being full of themselves”.

In the spiritual sense, ego means feeling and believing we are separate entities. Whether this entity has “good” or “bad” traits, emotions, or beliefs doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that these traits, emotions, or beliefs about “ourselves” automatically reinforce and strengthen the ego, the idea that we are separate entities and characters. (These characters exist only in our minds and through false identification of our true selves)

Surprisingly to many, humble and selfless people helping others can have a bigger ego than big shots if that humbleness is a learned character trait that reinforces the ego by getting fed by “likes” and praise for being selfless. The whole woke movement feeds on that.

The so-called “good” spiritual ego is much harder to dissolve than the so-called “bad” more worldly ego because it makes people feel “good” and “superior” and gives them the illusion they are making spiritual “progress”.

There is no such thing as “spiritual progress”.

But there is no such thing as spiritual progress. That is such an ego-mind construct.

You either see through the ego illusion, or you don’t. It is like saying I am dreaming, and my dream progresses towards being awake. The moment you wake up, the dream is no more. Until then, you dream.

The deconstruction of a spiritual ego by a master

Watch Nisargadatta take apart this illusionary spiritual ego step by step:

Q: It gave me peace of mind

M: Did it? Is your mind at peace? Is your search over?

Q: No, not yet.

M: Naturally. There will be no end to it, because there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind. Yoga is not an attribute of the mind, nor is it a state of mind.

Q: Some measure of peace I did derive from Yoga.

M: Examine closely and you will see that the mind is seething with thoughts. It may go blank occasionally, but it does it for a time and reverts to its usual restlessness. A becalmed mind is not a peaceful mind. You say you want to pacify your mind. Is he, who wants to pacify the mind, himself peaceful?

Nisargadatta swiftly, like always, brings us back to the only thing that matters and the only thing that will set us free: The reflection on “who we are.” Who is the apparent doer? The wanter?

Peace of mind is impossible.

Q: No. I am not at peace, I take the help of Yoga.

M: Don't you see the contradiction? For many years you sought your peace of mind. You could not find it, for a thing essentially restless cannot be at peace.

Q: There is some improvement.

So stubborn. He still doesn’t want to get it. Strong egos are like that. What is left of him if his Yoga identity is taken away? All his hope for peace rests on it. But it is a false hope that keeps him in a suffering state.

M: The peace you claim to have found is very brittle any little thing can crack it. What you call peace is only absence of disturbance. It is hardly worth the name. The real peace cannot be disturbed. Can you claim a peace of mind that is unassailable?

Q: l am striving.

Still, the ego talks and bathes in the illusion that it can reach enlightenment by doing something and fighting the only thing that can set it free: the realization that all striving is ego-based and bound to fail.

The nature of our true self - it is not at peace; it is peace itself. Only the mind is restless.

M: Striving too is a form of restlessness.

Q: So what remains?

M: The self does not need to be put to rest. It is peace itself, not at peace. Only the mind is restless. All it knows is restlessness, with its many modes and grades. The pleasant are considered superior and the painful are discounted. What we call progress is merely a change over from the unpleasant to the pleasant. But changes by themselves cannot bring us to the changeless, for whatever has a beginning must have an end. The real does not begin; it only reveals itself as beginningless and endless, all-pervading, all-powerful, immovable prime mover, timelessly changeless.

Nisargadatta effortlessly and succinctly points out the difference between the striving, restless ego-mind and our true self, as only a master who actually lives it can. This is the core message of all spiritual masters who have ever lived and taught.

Q: So what has one to do?

Finally, something changes. Some genuine interest beyond the ego-mind is aroused in the seeker.

M: Through Yoga you have accumulated knowledge and experience. This cannot be denied. But of what use is it all to you? Yoga means union, joining. What have you re-united, re-joined?

Q: I am trying to rejoin the personality back to the real self.

M: The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. Beyond the self (vyakta) lies the unmanifested (avyakta), the causeless cause of everything. Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right, because there is no person, only a mental picture given a false reality by conviction. Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite.

Q: Yoga helps in the search for and the finding of the self.

His ego fights to the death, using Yoga as a crutch to uphold the illusion that “spiritual doing and knowledge” will lead to liberation.

M: You can find what you have lost. But you cannot find what you have not lost.

Q: Had I never lost anything, I would have been enlightened. But I am not. I am searching. Is not my very search a proof of my having lost something?

His mind tries to intellectually and logically justify his spiritual ego trip.

Nisargadatta, like any true master, is not emotionally attached to his mind. Therefore, his mind is a pure, sharp tool at his disposal. The Yoga man doesn’t stand a chance on the intellectual plane.

M: It only shows that you believe you have lost. But who believes it? And what is believed to be lost? Have you lost a person like yourself? What is the self you are in search of? What exactly do you expect to find?

Q: The true knowledge of the self.

Spiritual knowledge doesn’t help us find our true selves - being oneself is beyond all motivation.

M: The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge. It is not something that you find by searching, by looking everywhere. It is not to be found in space or time. Knowledge is but a memory, a pattern of thought, a mental habit. All these are motivated by pleasure and pain. It is because you are goaded by pleasure and pain that you are in search of knowledge. Being oneself is completely beyond all motivation. You cannot be yourself for some reason. You are yourself, and no reason is needed.

Q: By doing Yoga I shall find peace.

True, everlasting freedom and peace can only be realized by surrendering all motivation, by surrendering the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain.

M: Can there be peace apart from yourself? Are you talking from your own experience or from books only? Your book knowledge is useful to begin with, but soon it must be given up for direct experience, which by its very nature is inexpressible. Words can be used for destruction also; of words images are built, by words they are destroyed. You got yourself into your present state through verbal thinking; you must get out of it the same way.

Q: I did attain a degree of inner peace. Am I to destroy it?

M: What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realise the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what is it that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.

Q: What are the means to such perception?

M: In life nothing can be had without overcoming obstacles. The obstacles to the clear perception of one's true being are desire for pleasure and fear of pain. It is the pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the way. The very freedom from all motivation, the state in which no desire arises is the natural state.

Q: Such giving up of desires, does it need time?

M: If you leave it to time, millions of years will be needed. Giving up desire after desire is a lengthy process with the end never in sight. Leave alone your desires and fears, give your entire attention to the subject, to him who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: 'who desires?' Let each desire bring you back to yourself.

This is non-dual self-enquiry in a nutshell. This is all that is needed. If we persist, we will find our true selves. It is straightforward.

Q: The root of all desires and fears is the same -- the longing for happiness.

M: The happiness you can think of and long for, is mere physical or mental satisfaction. Such sensory or mental pleasure is not the real, the absolute happiness.

Q: Even sensory and mental pleasures and the general sense of well-being which arises with physical and mental health, must have their roots in reality.

M: They have their roots in imagination. A man who is given a stone and assured that it is a priceless diamond will be mightily pleased until he realises his mistake; in the same way pleasures lose their tang and pains their barb when the self is known. Both are seen as they are -- conditional responses, mere reactions, plain attractions and repulsions, based on memories or preconceptions. Usually pleasure and pain are experienced when expected. It is all a matter of acquired habits and convictions.

AI will never be able to outsmart a self-realized person.

That’s how simple and habitual our egos are. They’re like computerized machines—nothing mysterious or magical about them. That’s why AI will never outdo an awakened person. AI preys on and calculates possibilities based on our habitual behaviour. If we stop our habitual behaviour and become truly spontaneous, all their predictions about us will be wrong. If their predictions are incorrect, their resulting policies, manipulations and coercions won’t work anymore.

If we are honest with ourselves and want nothing else, our desire to find our true selves will surely be fulfilled.

Q: Well, pleasure may be imaginary. But pain is real.

M: Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means freedom from both. If you do not care for pleasure, you will not be afraid of pain. But there is happiness which is neither, which is completely beyond. The happiness you know is describable and measurable. It is objective, so to say. But the objective cannot be your own. It would be a grievous mistake to identify yourself with something external. This churning up of levels leads nowhere. Reality is beyond the subjective and objective, beyond all levels, beyond every distinction. Most definitely it is not their origin, source or root. These come from ignorance of reality, not from reality itself, which is indescribable, beyond being and not-being.

Q: Many teachers have I followed and studied many doctrines, yet none gave me what I wanted.

M: The desire to find the self will be surely fulfilled, provided you want nothing else. But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else. If in the meantime you want many other things and are engaged in their pursuit, your main purpose may be delayed until you grow wiser and cease being torn between contradictory urges. Go within, without swerving, without ever looking outward.

Q: But my desires and fears are still there.

M: Where are they but in your memory? realise that their root is in expectation born of memory and they will cease to obsess you.

Q: I have understood very well that social service is an endless task, because improvement and decay, progress and regress, go side by side. We can see it on all sides and on every level. What remains?

Of all things in the world that can be done, find yourself first and endless blessings will follow

M: Whatever work you have undertaken -- complete it. Do not take up new tasks. unless it is called for by a concrete situation of suffering and relief from suffering. Find yourself first, and endless blessings will follow. Nothing profits the world as much as the abandoning of profits. A man who no longer thinks in terms of loss and gain is the truly non-violent man, for he is beyond all conflict.

Q: Yes, I was always attracted by the idea of ahimsa (non-violence).

M: Primarily, ahimsa means what it says: 'don't hurt'. It is not doing good that comes first, but ceasing to hurt, not adding to suffering. Pleasing others is not ahimsa.

This is just one example of how all true masters say the same thing. The above could be a quote from Buddha or Jesus.

Do not talk of helping another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.

Q: I am not talking of pleasing, but I am all for helping others.

M: The only help worth giving is freeing from the need for further help. Repeated help is no help at all. Do not talk of helping another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.

If the woke goodie-goodies only got this, much suffering would be lifted.

Q: How does one go beyond the need of help? And can one help another to do so?

M: When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful, and when you are willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have gone beyond all need of help. You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you do not have and you don't have what you are not. You can only give what you are -- and of that you can give limitlessly.

All existence is painful.

Q: But, is it true that all existence is painful?

M: What else can be the cause of this universal search for pleasure? Does a happy man seek happiness? How restless people are, how constantly on the move! It is because they are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure. All the happiness they can imagine is in the assurance of repeated pleasure.

Q: If what I am, as I am, the person I take myself to be, cannot be happy, then what am I to do?

M: You can only cease to be -- as you seem to be now. There is nothing cruel in what I say. To wake up a man from a nightmare is compassion. You came here because you are in pain, and all I say is: wake up, know yourself, be yourself. The end of pain lies not in pleasure. When you realise that you are beyond both pain and pleasure, aloof and unassailable, then the pursuit of happiness ceases and the resultant sorrow too. For pain aims at pleasure and pleasure ends in pain, relentlessly.

Q: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?

M: Nor sorrow. Only freedom. Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore, cannot be destroyed. realise that freedom.

Q: Am I not born to suffer as a result of my past? Is freedom possible at all? Was I born of my own will? Am I not just a creature?

M: What is birth and death but the beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness? Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful. Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure -- and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. It is all misunderstanding and misuse. Wake up, go beyond, live really.

Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible.

M: Being the source of both. the self is beyond both knowledge and power. The observable is in the mind. The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking. Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person

I don’t know if anything can be added to this article or spirituality in general.

Again, I feel everything has been said. Everything we need to know to be eternally free from all suffering has been said. Saying anything more only distracts from doing what needs to be done. I hope this will be my final long-form Substack.

Nisargadatta said above

Whatever work you have undertaken -- complete it. Do not take up new tasks. unless it is called for by a concrete situation of suffering and relief from suffering. Find yourself first, and endless blessings will follow.

May grace be with you.