Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: When I ask how do you know that you are a jnani, you answer: 'I find no desire in me. Is this not a proof?'
M: Were I full of desires, I would have still been what I am.
Q: Myself, full of desires and you, full of desires; what difference would there be?
M: You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave. To me desires are things among other things, mere clouds in the mental sky and I do not feel compelled to act on them.
Q: The knower and his knowledge, are they one or two?
M: They are both. The knower is the unmanifested, the known is the manifested. The known is always on the move, it changes, it has no shape of its own, no dwelling place. The knower is the immutable support of all knowledge; Each needs the other, but reality lies beyond. The jnani cannot be known because there is nobody to be known. When there is a person, you can tell something about it, but when there is no self-identification with the particular, what can be said? You may tell a jnani anything; his question will always be 'About whom are you talking? There is no such person'. Just as you cannot say anything about the universe because it includes everything, so nothing can be said about a jnani, for he is all and yet nothing in particular. You need a hook to hang your picture on; when there is no hook, on what will the picture hang? To locate a thing you need space, to place an event you need time; but the timeless and spaceless defies all handling. It makes everything perceivable, yet itself it is beyond perception. The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it. the jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence are the same to him.
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