By itself nothing has existence.
Everything needs its own absence.

To be, is to be distinguishable,
to be here and not there,
to be now and not then,
to be thus and not otherwise.

Like water is shaped by the container, so is everything determined by conditions (gunas).
As water remains water regardless of the vessels,
as light remains itself regardless of the colours it brings out,
so does the real remain real,
regardless of conditions in which it is reflected.

Why keep the reflection only in the focus of consciousness?
Why not the real itself?

To know that consciousness and its content are but reflections, changeful and transient, is the focussing of the real. The refusal to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.

One must also know that a rope exists and looks like a snake.
Similarly, one must know that the real exists and is of the nature of witness-consciousness. Of course it is beyond the witness, but to enter it one must first realise the state of pure witnessing.
The awareness of conditions brings one to the unconditioned.

To know the conditioned as conditioned is all that can be said about the unconditioned. Positive terms are mere hints and misleading.

Those who make plans will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be born.
To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end.

If there be God, then all is God’s and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self.

~ Guru Nisargadatta Maharaj
Excerpt from: I AM THAT
Chapter: “Existence”

Questioner: When an ordinary man dies, what happens to him?

Maharaj: According to his belief it happens. As life before death is but imagination, so is life after. The dream continues.

Q: And what about the gnani?
M: The gnani does not die because he was never born.

Q: He appears so to others.
M: But not to himself. In himself he is free of things — physical and mental.

Q: Still you must know the state of the man who died. At least from your own past lives.

M: Until I met my Guru I knew so many things. Now I know nothing, for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid. I know myself and I find no life nor death in me, only pure being — not being this or that, but just being. But the moment the mind,
drawing on its stock of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and time with events.

As I do not know even this birth, how can I know past births?
It is the mind that, itself in movement, sees everything moving, and having created time, worries about the past and future.

All the universe is cradled in consciousness
(maha tattva), which arises where there is perfect order and harmony (maha sattva). As all waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in awareness.
Hence awareness itself is all important, not the content of it.

Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to
you most naturally and effortlessly.

The five senses and the four functions of the mind — memory, thought, understanding and selfhood; the five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether; the two aspects of creation — matter and spirit, all are con-
tained in awareness.

Q: Yet, you must believe in having lived before.

M: The scriptures say so, but I know nothing about it. I know myself as I am; as I appeared or will appear is not within my
experience. It is not that I do not remember. In fact there is nothing to remember. Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing. The bundle of memories and hopes, called the ‘I’, imagines itself existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false eternity: To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born. You are accusing me of having been born — I plead not guilty!

All exists in awareness and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is the changeless reality itself.
All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but
awareness knows no beginning, nor end. If you think it out carefully and brood over it for a long time, you will come to see the
light of awareness in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision.

It is like looking at a burning incense stick; you see the stick and the smoke first; when you notice the fiery point, you realize that it has the power to consume mountains of sticks and fill the universe with smoke.

Timelessly the self actualizes itself,
without exhausting its infinite possibilities. In the incense stick simile the stick is the body and the smoke is the mind. As long
as the mind is busy with its contortions, it does not perceive its own source. The Guru comes and turns your attention to the
spark within. By its very nature the mind is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things among the things
themselves; to be told to look for the source within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life. Awareness takes the place of con-
sciousness; in consciousness there is the ‘I’, who is conscious,
while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself.

The ‘I am’ is a thought, while awareness is not a thought; there is no ‘I am aware’ in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all — being as well as not-being.

Excerpt from I AM THAT.
Consciousness Arising, World Arises
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj