Our linear type of thinking includes the grammatical convention that a transitive verb like “know” must have a subject, and a predicate; there cannot be “knowing” without someone who knows and something to be known. Our identification with this convention is so powerful that we cannot grasp the fact that there can be “knowing” or “understanding” as such without the knower and the thing known. This inability to put down the ghost of the individual entity – a creation of Maya – shows the extent to which we let conventions and concepts rule our lives. This is indeed the basis of the obsession “what will happen to me when I die?” The answer which Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj gave to such a query was, “you will be precisely what you were a hundred years ago”. The question is as misconceived as the question - what happens to my lap when I stand up, or to my fist when I open my hand.
~ Explorations into the Eternal - Forays into the teaching of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
