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Synopsis Prior to Consciousness Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Edited by jean dunn Nisargadatta Maharaj was one of the great sages of modern India. The talks in this collection are transcribed from tape recordings made during question and answer periods between 1980 and 1981. Maharaj passed away in November of 1981 at the age of eighty-four. The central core of Maharaj’s teaching is: Until man can free himself from false identifications, from pretensions and delusions of various kinds, he cannot come face to face with the eternal verity that is latent within his own self. "What the mind invents, the mind destroys. But the real is not invented and cannot be destroyed..." Jean Dunn, a close follower of Maharaj, edited this and two other volumes that make up a trilogy of Maharaj's talks: Seeds of Consciousness and Consciousness and the Absolute: The Final Talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Jean, who was with Maharaj during his last years, observes that during this time Maharaj did not entertain any questions pertaining to worldly life and its improvement, and exclusively taught the highest truth. "Even one sentence of his was like an Upanishad." He was very blunt and sharp in his answers and did not cater to anyone’s ego – in fact, his stated purpose was to destroy this "Pseudo-entity." To be in his presence was to feel the vibrant truth, impossible to describe. "He is amazing to watch . . . One could only gaze at him in total love and awe." Jean Dunn died in March 1996; she made an invaluable contribution in compiling the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj for posterity. In a tribute to the first collection of Maharaj's talks, I Am That, a follower wrote, "this collection of recorded question and answers is to the inner ear . . . a love-song out of the beyond, chanting the highest wisdom in the simplest down to earth language, a call divine for the yearning human child lost in the wilderness of ignorance. To those who know how to listen, I Am That proves itself a modern spiritual classic of the highest rank," (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Presentation Volume:1980). Prior to Consciousness continues the most revealing and illuminating dialogues which began with I Am That.