The True Nature of Reality

In meditation, let your beingness merge in your Self, the non-dual state. Remain still. Do not struggle to come out of the mud of your concepts, you will only go deeper. Simply abide in the stillness. The Self has no occasion to say it exists; it is in eternity. When there is no body-mind there can be no practice; only the stillness of the Self remains.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Don't say that you are an individual, just stay in the beingness; that is true bliss.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Instead of the natural process of manifestation taking place, in other words, instead of a phenomenon coming into appearance as merely a manifested image of the unmanifested noumenon, an apparently independent phantom-self gets created which appears to have an autonomous existence.  This phantom not only is supposed to be born, to live, to suffer and to die, but also to have the choice of decision and action, and, therefore, to be involved in the process of causality and Karma.  Once the mistaken identification with this pseudo-entity has taken place, then it gets loaded up with the concept of having to experience the resultant effects of all its imagined volitional actions - in other words, it is supposed to become subject to Karma, to bondage and to re-birth; and then, eventually, the entity, seeking relief from its suffering, appears to seek an imagined 'liberation'.  But, at no time has this shadow-phenomenon ever existed separate from its substance-noumenon; there

Now, the perception of this truth must happen suddenly with the deepest conviction and the most urgent immediacy. It is not a matter of developing understanding through reasoning over a period of time, but it is a sudden shock of timeless apprehension, an instantaneous cessation of the mind process in which thinking is suspended and intuitive awareness dawns. Then, after this seed of apprehension has been planted and has taken root, the deliverance from the imagined bondage will proceed on its own course, in its own time. Once you are thoroughly convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the object with which you had identified yourself all this time is really only a phenomenon, having neither independence nor autonomy... that it is merely a dreamed figure, an appearance without substance, seen as a phenomenal object through the dualistic minds of other sentient objects regarding themselves as subjects... and that this shadow can have neither bondage nor liberation... then you as cons

You have mistakenly attached yourself to a body-mind  -- a phantom self or ego. What is the real situation? You can only know by seeing directly. Study these pointers and apply them to the world you "see and experience".  Investigate thoroughly.  The manifestation of the entire universe is just like a dream and all the various beings in it are just dreamed objects... mere appearances going through their assigned parts, not really living but being lived and being dreamed by the dreamer.  However, there is not one dreamer.  Through each psychosomatic apparatus associated with consciousness, the universally shared dream is being dreamed; and so each sentient being is both a dreamed figure and the dreamer.  Through the divided mind, each being appears to exist apart from the 'others' and the world, but when you reflect on the process of the dream you soon realize that every object in this dreamed universe is 'you', in the same way that every obje

The blog posts will continue tomorrow with a new series: The Phantom I: Seeing Through the Illusion. Apologies for the three day absence -- owing to ill health of a friend. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple:   Now what is the conclusion?       Master:  The ‘false-I’ is the experiencer and the other one who is unconcernedly watching the states and their experiencer is the witness.  Disciple:   In that case, for the three states are there three different witnesses or is there only one?  Master:   The witness is only one whereas the states alternate one with another; the witness does not change. The same continuous awareness runs through the appearance, staying and disappearance of the three states. Thus the witness of the three states is the Self. The witness-hood of the Self has thus been described.  –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple:  Why should not the Self be both witness and experiencer of the three states?   Master:  Just as the witness watching two men fighting with each other does not fight himself, so also the witness cannot be the experiencer.  Again as the fighter does not simply watch the fight but himself fights, so also the experiencer cannot be the witness.  Therefore the same Self cannot be both the experiencer and the witness.   –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple: The ego cannot be the experiencer in deep sleep also. It is not there and how can it be said to be the experiencer? In the waking and dream states, the ego is rightly said to be the experiencer; in deep sleep the Self must be the experiencer.   Master: You are not right. The Jiva i.e., the ego, who in the waking and dream states appears as the intellectual sheath to enjoy gross and subtle things, sinks in deep sleep to remain dormant as the blissful sheath, experiencing ignorance and bliss as “I did not know anything — I slept happily.”  Had the ego not been present in deep sleep, on waking there could not be the recollection “I did not know anything — I slept happily.” Only the experiencer can recollect his experiences and not another. Even the recollection can only be of what was actually experienced and not of what was not. On waking, it is the ego which says “I did not know anything — I slept happily”.  From this it is clear that the experiencer in the deep slee

Disciple: Whose is deep sleep then?   Master: It is also of the ego, because just as it arrogates to itself the waking and dream states saying “I woke up — I dreamt”, so it does the deep sleep state also saying “I slept”. It cannot be of the Self since It remains unconcerned as the witness of the three states and of their experiencer who remains conceited with the ideas “I woke up — I dreamt — I slept.”  Therefore none of the three states is of the Self.  –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple: What makes you say that the ego and not the Self is the experiencer of the three states?   Master: In deep sleep, the ego becoming dormant, no experience or experiencer is seen; only on the rise of the ego are they found. He must therefore be the experiencer. His are the two states of waking and dream; they cannot be those of the Self.  –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple: If these three states are not of the Self, of whom else can they be?  Master: They can be only of the ego which assumes them whereas the Self is unconcerned. Affecting the waking state, the ego in the guise of visva enjoys the gross sense experiences; similarly in dream as taijasa he enjoys the subtle experiences; and in deep sleep as prajna he experiences ignorance. Therefore the ego must be the experiencer in these states and not the witnessing Self.  –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Disciple: How is the Self said to be witnessing the three states?  Master: The three states are the waking, dream and deep sleep through which the Jiva or the ‘false-I’ or the ego passes, identifying itself with the gross, subtle and causal bodies respectively. The Self must therefore be the Consciousness witnessing these three states; “It” is not identical with any or all of them.  –         ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

The ‘I am’ in a child is dormant, it does not know itself, but it is there, in due course it knows itself and as a one knows ‘I am’. Go to the root, the beginning of the child, when you understand that you are not consciousness, stabilize there; understand and get out. There is no need for The Absolute to go into Samadhi; it does not go anywhere it’s always there, while Samadhi is a changing state. ‘I amness’ becomes no ‘I amness’ in Samadhi, waking and deep sleep are phases of ‘I am, not of The Absolute.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously, this consciousness “I Am” has appeared.....there is no reason, no cause. Spontaneously it has come with the waking state, deep sleep, the five elemental play, three Gunas, and Prakriti and Purusha. These together are the means of demonstrating the “I Amness”. Then “I Am” embraces the body as its self and therefore identifies as a male or a female. This “I Amness” has its own love to be. It wants to remain, to perpetuate itself, but it is not eternal.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Just as in the seed the whole tree is latent, so in the droplet “I Am” all three worlds are squeezed in. In the process of knowing that droplet, you are out of it and you watch the play as a witness. This droplet of knowingness, is a result of the food essence body; in understanding it, you are out of it. If this last step is taken, knowing that I, the Absolute, am not that droplet, the consciousness, it has to happen only once. There is no more involvement with the play of consciousness. You are in a state of no return, the eternal state.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Why live at all? Why all this unnecessary coming and going, waking and sleeping, eating and digesting? Nothing is done by me. Everything just happens. I do not expect, I do not plan, I just watch events happening, knowing them to be unreal. The three states rotate as usual, there is waking and sleeping and waking again, but they do not happen to me. They just happen. To me nothing ever happens. There is something changeless, motionless, immovable, rocklike, unassailable.....a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss. I am never out of it. Nothing can take me out of it, no torture, no calamity.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Consciousness comes into being and goes out of being. Sometimes we are conscious and sometimes not. When we are not conscious, it appears to us as a darkness or a blank. But a jnani is aware of himself as neither conscious nor unconscious, but purely aware, a witness to the three states of mind and their contents.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

The three states, sleeping, dreaming and waking, are all in consciousness, the manifested; what you call unconsciousness will also be manifested - in time; beyond consciousness altogether lies the unmanifested. And beyond all, and pervading all, is the heart of being which beats steadily: manifested-unmanifested, manifested-unmanifested (saguna-nirguna).  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

We wake and we sleep. After a day's work sleep comes. Now, do I go to sleep or does inadvertence - characteristic of the sleeping state - come to me? In other words - we are awake because we are asleep. We do not wake up into a really waking state. In the waking state the world emerges due to ignorance and takes one into a waking-dream state. Both sleep and waking are misnomers. We are only dreaming. True waking and true sleeping only the gnani knows. We dream that we are awake, we dream that we are asleep. The three states are only varieties of the dream state. Treating everything as a dream liberates. As long as you give reality to dreams, you are their slave. By imagining that you are born as so-and-so, you become a slave to the so-and-so. The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history. In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop, nor decay; also see all as a dream and stay out of it.  – 

That energy which moves all things in the waking state is latent in deep sleep. How long is one unaware of awareness? One doesn't know, but suddenly consciousness arises. Does anyone think along these lines? Is it not amazing that consciousness, which might remain latent for any length of time, suddenly arises spontaneously?  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Questioner: It is a matter of daily experience that on waking up the world suddenly appears. Where does it come from?  Maharaj: Before anything can come into being there must be somebody to whom it comes. All appearance and disappearance presupposes a change against some changeless background.   Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

There is no individual looking at another individual; the sense of presence is cognizing. Other than that, there is nothing. This state of consciousness cognizing what appears in consciousness is being witnessed as a temporary state. The alternate states of waking, sleeping, and the sense of presence are all temporary states that have come upon me. I am not the states. They have all come spontaneously and will go spontaneously. No one has any control over them. Are any of these states your true nature?  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Questioner: What do you do when asleep?  Maharaj: I am aware of being asleep.  Q: Is not sleep a state of unconsciousness?  M: Yes, I am aware of being unconscious.  Q: And when awake, or dreaming?  M: I am aware of being awake, or dreaming.  Q: I do not catch you. What exactly do you mean? Let me make my terms clear: by being asleep I mean unconscious, by being awake, I mean conscious, by dreaming I mean conscious of one's mind but not of the surroundings.  M: Well, it is about the same with me. Yet, there seems to be a difference. In each state you forget the other two, while to me there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

Keep the 'I am' in focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost. It is transfigured, and becomes the real Self, the eternal friend and guide. You cannot approach it in worship. No external activity can reach the inner self; worship and prayer remain on the surface only; to go deeper meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then they recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj

Outside the Self there is nothing. All is one and all is contained in "I am". In the waking and dream states it is the person. In deep sleep and turiya [samadhi] it is the Self. Beyond the alert intentness of turiya lies the great, silent peace of the Supreme. But in fact all is one in essence and related in appearance. In ignorance the seer becomes the seen, and in wisdom he is the seeing.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.

The arrival of the knowledge ‘I am’, the waking state and the deep sleep state, all rolled into one ‘I am’, is known as birth. With this so-called birth all the observation started, prior to this where was the ‘I amness’? It was not there.  This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’.  –        Nisargadatta Maharaj Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.