The Seer of Things

“This Self is not what you can see with your eyes, because it is the Seer of things. How can you see it? This body is the seen; it is an object like any other object in this world. If the Ultimate Self, which is the Supreme Reality, is not an object that is perishable, it cannot be the body either. Otherwise, the Self will die along with the death of the body. What good is this knowledge of the Self? The Self is not what is seen in dream because in dream there is such fluctuation, fickleness of thought, and veritable transition, transitoriness, and all the sorrows that are incumbent in the waking life. The waking perception also is not the Self. The dream, the waking are both not the Self. The sleeping experience also is not the Self. What you experience in the state of deep sleep is not the Self; it is a negation of it.”

~ Swami Krishnananda, Lessons on the Upanishads