You are the Common Factor

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: What is your state at the present moment?

M: A state of non-experiencing. In it all experience is included.

Q: Can you enter into the mind and heart of another man and share his experience?

M: No. Such things require special training. I am like a dealer in wheat. I know little about breads and cakes. Even the taste of a wheat-gruel I may not know. But about the wheat grain I know all and well. I know the source of all experience. But the innumerable particular forms experience can take I do not know. Nor do I need to know. From moment to moment, the little I need to know to live my life, I somehow happen to know.

Q:  Your particular existence and my particular existence, do they both exist in the mind of Brahma?

M: The universal is not aware of the particular. The existence as a person is a personal matter. A person exists in time and space, has name and shape, beginning and end; the universal includes all persons and the absolute is at the root of and beyond all.

Q: I am not concerned with the totality. My personal consciousness and your personal consciousness  - what is the link between the two?

M: Between two dreamers what can be the link?

Q: They may dream of each others.

M: That is what people are doing. Everyone imagines 'others' and seeks a link with them. The seeker is the link, there is none other.

Q: Surely there must be something in common between the many points of consciousness we are.

M: Where are the many points? In your mind. You insist that your world is independent of your mind. How can it be? Your desire to know other people's minds is due to your not knowing your own mind. First know your own mind and you will find that the question of other minds does not arise at all, for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between the minds. Being the consciousness; I AM applies to all.