Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

I just finished reading two new books of Nisargadatta's latter books.

Let me put it this way: It is almost impossible to understand what he is saying.

Never does he place the entire range of his teachings into an overall context. He speaks in aphorisms, pithy answers to questions asked to him by students, with answers only for them, according to his own admission. He tells readers not to read "I Am That" because those are not his current teachings, which have changed.

Also, the teachings in I Am That are very, very different from those in his first book written 25 years earlier, Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization.

Part of the "problem" in his own words, is that he does not think about any of his answers, they spill spontaneously from his mouth as Consciousness addressing Consciousness in the questioner, in an effort to get the questioner into a statee entirely prior to all concepts.

In this way he teaches much like me: helping students get entirely into a don't know state where mind is mostly ignored.

So many teachers, especially the neo-advaitins, have almost no spiritual experiences, but only a simplistic denial of the existence of an inner Self of any sort, from which a whole simplistic philosophy follows.

Nisargadatta wanders hither and yan, using undefined terms, or term s defined with other under-defined terms. It is as if he makes it absolutely impossible to follow or understand him.

For example, it is not clear what he means by Prior to Consciousness. It was not even clear to Ramesh Balsekar who spent years with him. Is he referring to an Unmanifest Self entirely outside of Consciousness, a noumenal Self, or is he talking about Robert's "gap," the experience of existence prior to the arising of the I-sense and self-consciousness, and ccalling that the unchanging and Absolute. If the latter, his entire philosophy is rather trivial.

He also talks about your existence 100 years ago and insists that not knowing what you were at that time, proves that you must have been there in order to be the unchanging constant background that is currently expressing you are unaware of your existence then. he says you are that knowing principle who is unaware of what you were then. This is really crappy logic, unless he is is referring just to the state of Consciousness before the arising of the I Am, the pre-I Am experience of awareness without thought or self-recognition.

And so it goes. There are so many cracks in his model that make an understanding of Maharaj's "wisdom," nearly impossible unless you are very nimble on your feet, accept what he says at that moment, and are not able to hold his multiple inconsistencies in your mind at once.

It is as if he says, "A, not B, not A, C, not A, not C, and B."

Ramesh held steadfastly, the Maharaj's absolute referred to the awareness state that existed before thought. To me, this is rather trivial, barely a beginning of spiritual discovery to me.