Universal Consciousness Alone Exists

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

M: In the process of trying to understand, you get purified and the process subsides. So long as the food body essence is available, this consciousness endures. When the consciousness quits the body, that knowingness is no longer there. There remains only the universal consciousness without the knowingness, the non-knowingness state or anything else.

Then in that state there is no question of manifest or unmanifest. That comes only with the presence of consciousness. So long as the association with the body essence is there, this guna, this state of I AMness or beingness is available. But once this food essence is gone, that I AMness state is also gone. This guna, this consciousness, depends entirely on the food body essence. Once the latter is exhausted or no longer available, this consciousness or this guna is also not there. To repeat, the life force, the touch of I AMness or this guna, is not there in the absence of the food body essence, whether it concerns an ant or an elephant. 

All the stories of reincarnation, rebirth are mere stories meant for the ignorant masses.