2

THAT WHICH IS

Q: There is the witnessed consciousness and there is the witnessing consciousness. Is the second the supreme?

M: There are the two -- the person and the witness, the observer. When you see them as one, and go beyond, you are in the supreme state. It is not perceivable, because it is what makes perception possible. It is beyond being and not being. It is neither the mirror nor the image in the mirror. It is what is -- the timeless reality, unbelievably hard and solid.

Q: The jnani -- is he the witness or the Supreme?

M: He is the Supreme, of course, but he can also be viewed as the universal witness. 

Q: But he remains a person?

M: When you believe yourself to be a person, you see persons everywhere. In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. At the moment of realisation the person ceases.

Identity remains, but identity is not a person, it is inherent in the Reality itself. The person has no being in itself; it is a reflection in the mind of the witness, the 'I am', which again is a mode of being.

- Nisargadatta, I AM THAT ch 13