Q: There is suffering and bloodshed in East Pakistan at the present moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to you, how do you react to it?
A: In pure consciousness nothing ever happens.
Q: Please come down from these metaphysical heights! Of what use is it to a suffering man to be told that nobody is aware of his suffering but himself? To relegate everything to illusion is insult added to injury. The Bengali of East Pakistan is a fact and his suffering is a fact. Please, do not analyze them out of existence! You are reading newspapers, you hear people talking about it. You cannot plead ignorance. Now, what is your attitude to what is happening?
M: No attitude. Nothing is happening.
Come on, be nice, the girl is just trying to give her report.
These are the words of Sri Nisargaddata Maharaj, a “petty shopkeeper” in Bombay (of yore, he’s gone). He was argumentative and very stubborn in his spiritual attitude.
Young girls (the ones I know, the ones I knew) cry when someone is mean to them. You can say it is nothing, they will still cry. And cry. And cry. They feel it. They feel it.
One book is Blubber by Judy Blume (c. 1974 Dell) and the illustration is not credited in my copy, which is a shame. The other book is I am That: Conversations with Nisargadatta Maharaj. (Acorn Press) This is one of those books . . .well, it can change your life. Or maybe not.