Who Asks and Who Answers?

Nidagha: "Master, after these many years apart, I come to you with burning questions. Who am I? What is this world? How do I attain liberation?"

Ribhu: "Before I answer, tell me—who is it that asks?"

Nidagha: "I, Nidagha, your devoted student, ask these questions."

Ribhu: "And who is this "I" that calls itself Nidagha? Look carefully. Is it the body? The body is but a changing form of the five elements. Is it the mind? The mind is but a stream of fleeting thoughts. Is it the intellect? The intellect too rises and falls."

Nidagha: "Then... I do not know who asks."

Ribhu: "Now you are closer to truth. When the questioner dissolves, what happens to the question?"

Nidagha: "The question has no one to hold it. It vanishes."

Ribhu: "And if there is no question, what need is there for an answer? What need for a teacher? What need for a student?"

Nidagha: "But Master, you are here before me. I see you. We are speaking."

Ribhu: "What you call "seeing" is Brahman seeing Brahman. What you call "speaking" is Brahman conversing with itself. There is no Ribhu standing apart to teach. There is no Nidagha standing apart to learn. These are waves imagining themselves separate from the ocean."

Nidagha: "Then this entire seeking is..."

Ribhu: "A play. The seeker, the seeking, the sought—all one seamless Awareness pretending to be three. You ask "Who am I?" but the very asking IS the answer. The one who can ask is the one who always was, is, and will be. Pure Consciousness. Not born. Not dying. Not bound. Not in need of liberation."

Nidagha: "Then why do I feel bound?"

Ribhu: "Does space feel bound when a pot surrounds it? Break the pot—the space was never confined. Your sense of bondage is itself the dream. Wake from the dream of being a dreamer, and you find you never slept."

Nidagha: "Master, what remains when even this conversation is seen as illusion?"

Ribhu: "What remains cannot be spoken, for speaking implies two—speaker and listener. What remains cannot be thought, for thought implies a thinker apart from the thought. What remains simply IS. Call it Brahman. Call it Self. Call it nothing at all. The name too is extra."

Nidagha: "[Silent]"

Ribhu: "Now, finally, you understand. In silence, no question arises. In silence, no answer is needed. The teacher and student merge into what they always were—One without a second."