It is interesting how the mind distorts things. Osho’s book on intuition was super eye opening for me with consideration to the cult accusations. With the idea of intuitive knowing, do you try to challenge/test yourself with potentially dishonest books? “Painted cakes do not satisfy hunger.” I get that but I love reading wild books. The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance. M: Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. Q: Since reality is all the time with us, what does self-realisation consist of? It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy.

Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness? And it is the common matrix of every experience. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content consciousness is always of something. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. M: Awareness is primordial it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Q: You use the words 'aware' and 'conscious'. But why should I invent patterns of creation, evolution and destruction? I do not need them and have no desire to lock up the world in a mental picture. M: The world is but a reflection of my imagination. Q: Do you see in the world a direction and a purpose? In each state you forget the other two, while to me, there is but one state of being, including and transcending the three mental states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. M: Well, it is about the same with me, Yet, there seems to be a difference.

What exactly do you mean? Let me make my terms clear: by being asleep I mean unconscious, by being awake I mean conscious, by dreaming I mean conscious of one’s mind, but not of the surroundings. M: I am aware of being awake or dreaming. Q: Is not sleep a state of unconsciousness? He excellently explains, in his experienece, the difference between the concepts of Awareness and Consciousness and points to that which all experience happens and doesn't happen etc: For anyone unaware of the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj, this is a great question and answer section from chapter 11 of I AM THAT.

I am maharaj