You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

Questions and Answers & exercises / 65
Wolinsky: And if the knower of the mind and the mind
were made of THE SAME SUBSTANCE?
Student: _______Blank_______(Silence)_______
Wolinsky: That blank is prior to inferences and is the
non-verbal I AM. The illusion is that the “I”
which knows the mind is made of a different
consciousness than the concept called MIND.
The H. H. Dalai Lama said, “The mind is devoid
of mind.”
When “you” realize they are the same, “you”
realize “The mind is devoid of mind.”
When Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “Who is the
knower? Find out.” “I” thought there was one who
was the knower, but actually upon investigation,
the knower-known and the process of knowing,
all disappeared; they are one unit.
Student: I am here now, “I” can see and feel that, how can
“you” say “I” am not or that I am an illusion?
Wolinsky: Let’s begin by trying to just give the understanding
that YOU ARE NOT. First, “you” get that the
nervous system abstracts and selects out so that
what “your” eyes see is an abstraction of THAT
ONE SUBSTANCE.
Student: Yes “I” can understand that intellectually.
Wolinsky: Good place to start Now, the perceiver of, let’s
say, what “you” call your hand is also an abstraction
of the microscopic level, and the image of
the hand is an abstraction of the perceiver.
Student: Yes.