A Swedish seeker came to Nisargadutta and told him that he studied the whole teaching of India and that he got peace of mind. N asked him if his mind was at peace and the search was over.

When he said no, N told him there will be no end to it, because there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind. 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. 

For many years you sought your peace of mind. You could not find it, for a thing essentially restless cannot be at peace. 

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. 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. 

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

The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge. Knowledge is but a memory, a pattern of thought, and 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.

You got yourself into your present state through verbal thinking; you must get out of it the same way. Only when you realize 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? 

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. 

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. 

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. 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 realizes his mistake; in the same way pleasures lose their tang and pain 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 pre-conceptions. Usually pleasure and pain are experienced when expected. It is all a matter of acquired habits and convictions. 

Desires and fears- Where are they but in your memory? Realize that their root is in expectation born of memory and they will cease to obsess you. 

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. The end of pain lies not in pleasure. When you realize that you are beyond 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. 

In the ultimate state there can be neither happiness nor sorrow. Only freedom. Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost. 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, and live really. 

When the seeker said that the condition that one must have freedom from desires and inclinations is impossible of fulfillment, N told him that there are no conditions to fulfill. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the field of consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, nor even the knower of the field. It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in the results of your efforts ' the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration ' all this holds you back. Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it. 

To look for it on the mental level is futile. Stop searching, and see ' it is here and now ' it is that 'I am' you know so well. All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness 

The greatest Guru is your inner self. Truly, he is the supreme teacher. He alone can take you to your goal and he alone meets you at the end of the road. Confide in him and you need no outer Guru.