Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Cover of I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta

The discovery of the truth is in the discernment of the false. You can know what is not . What is – you can only be. Knowledge is relative to the known. In a way it is the counterpart of ignorance. Where ignorance is not, where is the need of knowledge ? By themselves neither ignorance nor knowledge have being. They are only states of mind, which again is but an appearance of movement in consciousness which is in its essence immutable.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj, from the classic ‘I am That‘, p 370

Sri Ramana Maharishi

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In the beginning one has to be told that he is not the body, because he thinks that he is the body only. Whereas he is the body and all else. The body is only a part. Let him know it finally. He must first discern consciousness from insentience and be the consciousness only. Later let him realise that insentience is not apart from consciousness.
This is discrimination (viveka). The initial discrimination must persist to the end. Its fruit is liberation.

— Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi, from the classic, ‘Talks’, p 159