NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ:
Visitor: In the process of meditation when one reaches the silence and asks ' Who am I?' there comes a profound silence where the notion ' I' does not arise. Is this the state, and if so, can one have flashes of it prior to Self-realisation?
Maharaj:" These experiences are in the realm of your birth-state."
V: The state that I am referring to is the state where birth is forgotten, as are the name and form.
M:" What you have described of samadhi, or meditation, is correct, but it is still the product of the body-mind imagination. Whatever experiences you have in meditation, of that silence also, is confined to the realm of Consciousness. Consciousness is born and it will go. You are prior to it."
V: It is also said that the Self is Self-effulgent, that it is light, and that the Consciousness appears by a reflection of that light. If one were to pursue the light, could one find the state to which Maharaj is referring?
M:" Whatever is manifest before you has come out of that Consciousness."
V: I was talking about a Self-indulgent light that equates itself with the Self. If one is a seeker of Truth, by finding that light would one find the Truth?
M:" There is the true Awareness, from which comes Consciousness, which is your feeling ' I Am'; be one with your Consciousness and that is all you can do, the Ultimate state must come to you. You can only watch whatever happens- there is nothing you can do to get it."
V: Many of the religious texts of Advaita Vedanta express the notion that as one becomes Self-aware there is a light that permeates, and that the light which the world, or Maya, has is a reflection of that primordial light. Is that not literal?
M:" Maya is the expression of that One which cannot be described. Consciousness is manifesting itself through all this, and you are before Consciousness. Consciousness is the soul of this manifest world, and you, the Absolute, are the soul of Consciousness.
Whatever you have read is only the concepts of the writers. Does it tally with your personal knowledge?"
V: No, these are the guidelines toward achieving the sense of ' I Am'. They also say that all Gurus are one.
M:" Guru is the same all-pervading Consciousness ' I Am'. The Sat-Guru has gone beyond all these concepts, including the primary concept ' I Am'."