Q: In Europe, there is no tradition of a mantra, except in some contemplative orders. Of what use is it to a modern young Westerner?
M: None, unless he is very much attracted.
For him, the right procedure is to adhere to the thought that he is the ground of all knowledge, the immutable and perennial awareness of all that happens to the senses and the mind.
If he keeps it in mind all the time, aware and alert, he is bound to break the bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure life, light, and love.
The idea 'I am the witness only' will purify the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom. Then man goes beyond illusion, and his heart is free of all desires.
Just like ice turns to water and water to vapor, and vapor dissolves in air and disappears in space, so does the body dissolve into pure awareness (chidakash), then into pure being (paramakash), which is beyond all existence and non-existence.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT ch 22
