Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q. Of course I am the same person throughout. I remember myself as I was yesterday and yester year -- definitely, I am the same person.
M. So, to be a person, you need memory?
Of course.
M.Without memory, what are you?
Q.Incomplete memory entails incomplete personality. Without memory I cannot exist as a person.
M.Surely you can exist without memory. You do so -- in sleep.
Q. Only in the sense of remaining alive. Not as a person.
M. Since you admit that as a person you have only intermittent existence, can you tell me what are you in the intervals in between experiencing yourself as a person?
Q. I am, but not as a person. Since I am not conscious of myself in the intervals, I can only say that I exist. but not as a person.
M. Shall we call it impersonal existence?
Q. I would call it rather unconscious existence; I am, but I do not know that I am.
M. You have said just no: 'I am, but I do not know that I am'. Could you possibly say it about your being in an unconscious state?
Q. No, I could not.
M. You can only describe it in the past tense: 'I did not know. I was unconscious', in the sense of not remembering.
Q. Having been unconscious, how could I remember and what?
M. Were you really unconscious, or you just do not remember?
Q. How am I to make out?
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