The Mind of the Sage

What is it to be real in advaita? It is to be uncontradicted in all three moments of time; past, present,future. The ordinary changeful mental activity which we identify with is therefore unreal in that ultimate reckoning. However for everyday purposes we can distinguish between reality and illusion, delusion and confusion. Normal confirmation or disconformation applies.

‘Unreal nescience’ is therefore a technical term for the ontological foundations of the subject/object divide. The ‘opponent’ impugning the advaitic understanding fails to realise this:

Opponent: How, again, can the means of valid knowledge, such as direct perception as well as the scriptures, have as their basis a cognizer who is subject to nescience?

Vedantin: Since a man without self-identification with the body, mind, senses etc., cannot become a cognizer and as such the means of knowledge cannot function for him since perception and other activities (of a man) are not possible without accepting the senses etc. (as his own) ; since the senses cannot function without (the body as) a basis since nobody engages in any activity with a body that has not the idea of the Self superimposed on it; .....

(from the preamble to B.S.B.)

The knowledge that this superimposition is always taking place does not annihilate the mind of the realised sage. Nisargadatta Maharaj explains:

I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste, eat as you eat. I also feel thirst and hunger and expect my food to be served on time. When starved or sick , my body and mind go weak. All this I perceive quite clearly but somehow I am not in it, I feel myself floating over it, aloof and detached.

(from section 57 of I am That /Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)