Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: From which point of view are they (relative and absolute) identical?
M: When words are spoken, there is silence. When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there - at the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it. The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for knowledge. The jnani is beyond all experience and his memory is empty of the past. He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular. But the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but the mind will not leave it alone - and deals instead with the unreal. And yet it is all the mind can do - discover the unreal as unreal.
Q: And seeing the real as real?
M: There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real - which you are anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.
Q: Why then are we encouraged to seek the real?
M: The mind must have a purpose. To encourage it to free itself from the unreal it is promised something in return. In reality, there is no need of purpose. Being free from the false is good in itself, it wants no reward. It is just like being clean - which is its own reward.
Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?
M: The reward of self-knowledge is freedom form the personal self. You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact of knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the known is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colors only, so is the knower known in knowledge.
Q: Is the knower an inference only?
M: You know your mind, body and feelings. Are you an inference only?
Q: I am an inference to others, but not to myself.
M: So am I. An inference to you, but not to myself. I know myself by being myself. As you know yourself to be a man by being one. You do not keep on reminding yourself that you are a man. It is only when your humanity is questioned that you assert it. Similarly, I am that I am all. I do not need to keep on repeating 'I am all'. Only when you take me to be a particular, a person, I protest. As you are a man all the time, so I am what I am - all the time. Whatever you are changelessly, that you are beyond all doubt.
Q: From which point of view are they (relative and absolute) identical?
M: When words are spoken, there is silence. When the relative is over, the absolute remains. The silence before the words were spoken, is it different from the silence that comes after? The silence is one and without it the words could not have been heard. It is always there - at the back of the words. Shift your attention from words to silence and you will hear it. The mind craves for experience, the memory of which it takes for knowledge. The jnani is beyond all experience and his memory is empty of the past. He is entirely unrelated to anything in particular. But the mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape. Of everything it wants an idea, for without ideas the mind is not. Reality is essentially alone, but the mind will not leave it alone - and deals instead with the unreal. And yet it is all the mind can do - discover the unreal as unreal.
Q: And seeing the real as real?
M: There is no such state as seeing the real. Who is to see what? You can only be the real - which you are anyhow. The problem is only mental. Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.
Q: Why then are we encouraged to seek the real?
M: The mind must have a purpose. To encourage it to free itself from the unreal it is promised something in return. In reality, there is no need of purpose. Being free from the false is good in itself, it wants no reward. It is just like being clean - which is its own reward.
Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?
M: The reward of self-knowledge is freedom form the personal self. You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower. The fact of knowing proves the knower. You need no other proof. The knower of the known is not knowable. Just like the light is known in colors only, so is the knower known in knowledge.
Q: Is the knower an inference only?
M: You know your mind, body and feelings. Are you an inference only?
Q: I am an inference to others, but not to myself.
M: So am I. An inference to you, but not to myself. I know myself by being myself. As you know yourself to be a man by being one. You do not keep on reminding yourself that you are a man. It is only when your humanity is questioned that you assert it. Similarly, I am that I am all. I do not need to keep on repeating 'I am all'. Only when you take me to be a particular, a person, I protest. As you are a man all the time, so I am what I am - all the time. Whatever you are changelessly, that you are beyond all doubt.
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