Nisargadatta from I Am That...

Questioner: People come to you for advice. How do you know
what to answer?
Maharaj: As I hear the question, so do I hear the answer.
Q: And how do you know that your answer is right?
M: Once I know the true source of the answers, I need not
doubt them. From a pure source only pure water will flow. I am
not concerned with people’s desires and fears. I am in tune with
facts, not with opinions. Man takes his name and shape to be
himself, while I take nothing to be myself. Were I to think myself
to be a body known by its name, I would not have been able to
answer your questions. Were I to take you to be a mere body,
there would be no benefit to you from my answers. No true
teacher indulges in opinions. He sees things as they are and
shows them as they are. If you take people to be what they think
themselves to be, you will only hurt them, as they hurt them-
selves so grievously all the time. But if you see them as they are
in reality, it will do them enormous good. If they ask you what to
do, what practices to adopt, which way of life to follow, answer:
‘Do nothing, just be. In being all happens naturally.’


From Chapter 49 Mind Causes Insecurity