Nisargadatta is not promulgating an ontology/epistemology. He uses the existing philosophy of the enquirer as a means to attainment of a path that might lead to enlightenment. The point is finding water by drilling deep not by a multitude of small holes. Sifting through various approaches, realism or idealism, internal or external reality is beside the point for him. Sincere seeking using the dialectical advaitic method of adhiropa/apavada or statement followed by retraction. Maharaj challenges the Questioner’s implicit realism:
“M: The body appears in your mind, your mind is the content of your consciousness, you are the motionless witness of the river of consciousness which changes eternally without changing you in any way. Your own changelessness is so obvious that you do not notice it. Have a good look at yourself and all those misapprehensions and misconceptions will dissolve. Just as all our little watery lives are in water and cannot be without water, so all the universe is in you and cannot be without you.”
The important thing is getting detached from the panoply of awareness to focus on the central fact which cannot be sublated, the I AM you are in the moment. What are you at with your theories, you can only be distracted by them. By being in the presence of a master one has other business than that.
On the face of it Maharaj seems to be offering a pure subjective idealism as a ‘final’ theory. Such would be the western way of doing philosophy. In advaita/nondualism the theory ends in the unsayable, the apophatic. Move towards the ‘trikala abheda’ or that which is un-contradicted in the three moments of time; past, present, and future.
Last word from Nisargadatta Maharaj:
“Don’t mentalise and verbalise. Just see and be”
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