Manifest and Unmanifest are One

 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

According to Maharaj, at the level of the mind, the 'I' may be considered under three aspects:

1. The impersonal - Avyakta (unmanifest), the Absolute 'I' beyond all sensory perception or experience and unaware of itself.

2. The super personal - Vyakta (manifested), which is the reflection of the Absolute in consciousness, as I AM.

3. The personal - Vyakti, which is a construct of the physical and vital processes, the psychosomatic apparatus in which consciousness manifests itself.

Maharaj, however, makes it a point to repeat at frequent intervals, that such distinction is purely a notional one, and cannot exist in reality. Essentially there is no difference between the manifest (vyakta) and the unmanifest (avyakta), just as there is no difference essentially between light and daylight. The universe is full of light but that light cannot be seen until it is reflected against a surface as daylight; and what the daylight reveals is the individual person (vyakti). The individual in the form of the human body is always the object; consciousness (as the witnessing) is the subject, and their relation of mutual dependence (consciousness cannot appear without the apparatus of a body and the body cannot have sentience without consciousness) is the proof of their basic identity with the Absolute. They both are the same consciousness; one is at rest, the other in movement - each conscious of the other.

The entire manifested universe, explains Maharaj, exists only in consciousness. The conceptualized process would be as follows: Consciousness arises in Pure Being, for no particular reason or cause other than that it is its nature todo so - like waves on the surface of the sea. In consciousness the world appears and disappears; and each one of us is entitled to say: All there is, is I, all there is, is mine; before all beginning, after all endings, I am there to witness whatever happens. Me, you and he are only appearances in consciousness - all are basically 'I'.

It is not that the world does not exist. As an appearance in consciousness, the world is the totality of the known in the potential of the unknown. The world can be said to appear, but not be. Duration of the appearances, of course, will differ according to the different scales of time. Apart from the fact that the world disappears in deep sleep and reappears in the waking state, the duration of its appearance would vary according to the allotted span of one's life time - a few hours for an insect and eons for the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara! Ultimately, however, whatever is an appearance in consciousness must end, and it cannot have any reality.