An excerpt from Prior to Consciousness: Talks with Sri Nisargaddata Maharaj, edited by Jean Dunn
January 1, 1981
Questioner: "Does the universe exist without me?"
Maharaj: When you did not have the consciousness were you concerned with the world? The world will exist as long as consciousness is there.
Don't get involved in too many questions and answers. Do meditation, so that the knowledge becomes one with the knowledge. Then all the answers will spring up spontaneously. I have given you the key. Mine is the state where there are no fears, no desires, no ambitions.
Q: By meditation, will I reach that state?
M: You must meditate, but there is nothing to reach - you are that state.
Q: When you are very active in the world it is very easy to identify with the body.
M: It is not because of the activities that you identify with the body, it is because of the identification with the body that the activities are claimed.
Q: It is easier not to be identified if you are not involved in activities.
M: That is a concept. In you there cannot be any change; it is your presumption that there will be some change in you. You are talking to me from the standpoint of body identification.
You are trying to obtain something - a spiritual object. Forget that. Merely see what that is with which you identify yourself, the body. Find out the source of the body. When you understand that, there will be no need of any spiritual search.
Q: There is no opportunity to find out because you have to do your work.
M: The two are not connected. You can find this out even in the thick of battle. How did this body arise, what is the source?
If you are asked to give up this or that in your daily activities, that is not true. Forget about giving anything up - do all your normal business as best you can, but all that can go on only so long as the consciousness is there. Keep in mind only not to hurt others.
Do's and don'ts are given so that the affairs in the world may go on smoothly.
Whatever you have been told or have read will take you nowhere. Find out first, what is it because of which I know I exist - that is the consciousness. The entire universe is based on the concept "I Am." It is illusory, imaginary, there is no substance to it.
- pp. 90-91