What is Known Cannot be Myself

 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: Is 'I am' itself the witness, or are they separate?

M: Without one the other cannot be. Yet they are not one. It is like flower and its color. Without flower - no colors; without color - the flower remains unseen. Beyond is the light which on contact with the flower creates the color. Realize that your true nature is that of pure light only, and both the perceived and the perceiver come and go together. That which makes both possible, and yet is neither, is your real being, which means not being a 'this' or 'that', but pure awareness of being and not-being. When awareness is turned on itself, the feeling is of not knowing. When it is turned outward, the knowables come into being. To say: 'I know myself' is a contradiction in terms for what is known cannot be myself.

Q: If the Self is for ever the unknown, what then is realized in Self-realization?

M: Nobody can say: 'I am the witness'. The I AM is always witnessed. The state of detached awareness is the witness-consciousness, the mirror-mind. It rises and sets with its object and thus it is not quite the real. Whatever its object, it remains the same, hence it is also real. It partakes of both the real and the unreal and is therefore a bridge between the two.

Q: If all happens only to the 'I am', if the 'I am' is the known and the knower and the knowledge itself, what does the witness do? Of what use is it?

M: It does nothing and is of no use whatsoever.

Q: Then why do we talk of it?

M: Because it is there. The bridge serves one purpose only - to cross over. You don't build houses on a bridge. The I AM looks at things, the witness sees through them. It seems them as they are - unreal and transient. To say 'not me, not mine' is the task of the witness.

Q: Is it the manifested (saguna) by which the unmanifested (nirguna) is represented?

M: The unmanifested is not represented. Nothing manifested can represent the unmanifested.

Q: Then why do you talk of it?

M: Because it is my birthplace.