Final Destruction of Duality

(Nidagha has absorbed countless teachings, yet something subtle remains.)

Nidagha: "Master Ribhu, I understand that all is Brahman. But in understanding this, there is still an 'I' who understands and a 'truth' that is understood. How is this final duality destroyed?"

Ribhu: "(eyes blazing with the fire of final knowledge) You have asked the question that ends all questions. Listen: the very understanding 'all is Brahman' must itself be consumed. As long as there is an understanding, there is still a shadow of duality—one who knows and something known."

Nidagha: "But without understanding, would I not fall into ignorance?"

Ribhu: "What you call ignorance and what you call knowledge are both movements in Brahman. Neither the ignorant one nor the wise one truly exists. The final destruction of duality is not gaining a special knowledge—it is the collapse of the one who would gain anything. Brahman does not know it is Brahman. It simply IS."

Nidagha: "Then what remains when the knower is destroyed?"

Ribhu: "What remains is what was always here—pure being without a trace of 'someone' being. Not even the thought 'I am Brahman' survives. That thought is the last foothold of ego, the spiritual ego that says 'I have realized.' When that too dissolves, there is no realization and no one to be realized. Only THIS—without name, without the knower of the name, without even the absence of names."

Nidagha: "This teaching seems to destroy everything I have learned..."

Ribhu: "Exactly! Everything you have learned was a raft to cross the river of ignorance. But the raft must be abandoned on the far shore. If you carry the raft with you, you have not truly crossed. All teachings, all understanding, all spiritual knowledge—these are burnt offerings in the fire of final truth. What remains is neither knowledge nor ignorance, neither bondage nor liberation."

Nidagha: "Then teacher and student...?"

Ribhu: "Never existed except in the dream of duality. There is no Ribhu teaching, no Nidagha learning. This apparent conversation is Brahman playing with itself, pretending separation to enjoy the sweetness of reunion. But in truth, there was never separation, never reunion, never teaching, never learning. The play itself is empty of any reality apart from Brahman."

(Nidagha feels the ground dissolving beneath him.)

Nidagha: "If I am not here, if this teaching is not real, if the teacher is not other than myself..."

Ribhu: "(with infinite gentleness) Now you are tasting the final dissolution. Let even these words dissolve. Let the one who hears them dissolve. Let understanding and not-understanding both dissolve. What remains cannot be spoken, cannot be known, cannot be not-known. It is closer than close, yet has no location. It is you, yet there is no 'you.' THIS is the final destruction of duality—not a state achieved, but the recognition that duality was never born."

(In the silence that follows, neither teacher nor student remains. There is only Brahman—not knowing itself as Brahman, not knowing itself as anything, simply being what it always is and always was.)