Seeker Vanishes

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

March 8, 1981

Q: Can we understand our real nature through consciousness? Can we grasp it?

M: Is there any other instrument through which you can understand your nature? Whatever is can be perceived by all, is perceived by all. Who wants to grasp it? You, as a separate entity, want to know That which is, as the Absolute. It can't be done, because you are the Absolute. Where does the one who has attained samadhi go? The seeker himself has disappeared.

Q: If the seeker is a concept, then the Guru is also a concept.

M: Yes, but that Guru is the support for all seeking. So long as there is word there is seeker; when the word vanishes, there is nothing. 

I have experienced all four kinds of speech and transcended them. Rarely will anybody follow this hierarchy to stabilize in the consciousness and transcend consciousness. Starting from vaikhara (word), normally we listen to words from vaikhari we go to madhyama (mind thought); in watching the mind we are in pashyanti where the concept formation takes place and from there to para ( I AM -without words), and finally from para to prior to consciousness. This is the line to follow but only a rare one follows it - receding, reversing.

Q: Is deep sleep and the state prior to the I AM one and the same?

M: As a concept it is the same thing; until you become That, then there will be no one to know. Not only that, but whatever actions are done - whether through you or me - are originally done within that state of deep sleep. In sleep you dream; this being-awake state is the primary dream; the dream in the sleeping state is the secondary dream - it is the transformation of the primary dream. In this state of consciousness, in the primary dream, the entire universe is created and when it is realized that it is a dream - then you are awake. Both dreams are consciousness.

Q: Then the actor cannot know that he is dreaming?

M: That is exactly the beauty of maya, the whole heart of it. Understand that the basis of whatever dream it is, is consciousness.