Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: Before the spark is lit and after, what is the difference?
M: Before the spark is lit there is no witness to perceive the difference. The person may be conscious, but is not aware of being conscious. It is completely identified with what it thinks and feels and experiences. The darkness that is in it is of its own creation. When the darkness is questions, it dissolves. The desire to question is planted by the Guru. In other words, the difference between the person and the witness is as between not knowing and knowing oneself. The world is seen in consciousness is to be of the nature of consciousness when there is harmony (sattva); but when activity and passivity (rajas and tamas) appear, they obscure and distort and you see the false as real.
Q: What can the person do to prepare itself for the coming of the Guru.
M: The very desire to be ready means that the Guru had come and the flame is lighted. It may be a stray word, or a page in a book; the Guru's words work mysteriously.
Q: Is there no such thing as self-preparation? We hear so much about yoga sadhana?
M: It is not the person that is doing sadhana. The person is unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and future.
Q: How can we know that what you say is true? While it is self contained and free from inner contradictions, how can we know that it is not a product of fertile imagination, nurtured and enriched by constant repetition?
M: The proof of the truth lies in its effect on the listener.
Q: Words can have a most powerful effect. By hearing, or repeating words, one can experience various kinds of trances. The listener's experiences may be induced and cannot be considered as a proof.
M: The effect need not necessarily be an experience. It can be a change in character, in motivation, in relationship to people and one's self. Trances and visions induced by words, or drugs, or any other sensory or mental means are temporary and inconclusive. The truth of what is said here is immovable and everlasting. And the proof of it is in the listener, in the deep and permanent changes in his entire being. It is not something he can doubt, unless he doubts his own existence, which is unthinkable. When my experience becomes your own experience also, what better proof do you want?
Q: The experiencer is the proof of his experience.
M: Quite, but the experiencer needs no proof. 'I am and I know I am'. You cannot ask for further proofs.
Q: Can there be true knowledge of things?
M: Relatively - yes. Absolutely - there are no things. To know that nothing is is true knowledge.
Q: What is the link between the relative and the absolute?
M: They are identical.
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