Freedom from the ego-self is the fruit of self-enquiry
Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in your natural state.
Q: Is not self-knowledge the reward?
Nisargadatta M: The reward of self-knowledge is freedom from the personal self. You cannot know the knower, for you are the knower.
Q: Myself, full of desires and you, full of desires; what difference would there be?
Q: Myself, full of desires and you, full of desires; what difference would there be?
Nisargadatta M: You identify yourself with your desires and become their slave. To me desires are things among other things, mere clouds in the mental sky, and I do not feel compelled to act on them
The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it. The jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence are the same to him.
Immortality is freedom from the feeling: 'I am'. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it is a state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think of. Only self-consciousness is no more.
Q: The person goes and only the witness remains.
The mind cannot know what is beyond the mind, but the mind is known by what is beyond it. The jnani knows neither birth nor death; existence and non-existence are the same to him.
Immortality is freedom from the feeling: 'I am'. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it is a state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think of. Only self-consciousness is no more.
The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom
Q: The person goes and only the witness remains.
Nisargadatta M: Who remains to say: 'I am the witness'. When there is no 'I am', where is the witness? In the timeless state there is no self to take refuge in.
The man who cherishes the feeling 'I am' is self-conscious. The jnani holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is the very heart of awareness. We call him digambara clothed in space, the Naked One, beyond all appearance. There is no name and shape under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is.
Q: What about the witness? Is it real or unreal?
Nisargadatta M: It is both. The last remnant of illusion, the first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true: false because of the 'I am', true because of the witness. It is better to say: 'there is witnessing'. The moment you say: 'I am', the entire universe comes into being along with its creator.
The trinity: mind, self and spirit (vyakti, vyakta, avyakta), when looked into, becomes unity. These are only modes of experiencing: of attachment, of detachment, of transcendence.