In Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching, the mind is understood as a limited function within consciousness rather than as one’s true identity. Thoughts, memories, concepts, and conditioning all belong to this mental sphere, which forms part of the changing phenomenal field. By identifying with this activity, there arises the sense of being a separate individual—“I am this” or “I am that”—which obscures the simple, prior sense of being, the pure “I Am.” In this way, the mind is the principal source of illusion and suffering, generating duality, conflict, and the feeling of separation from reality as a whole.

At the same time, the mind is not dismissed outright; it has a legitimate, though strictly instrumental, role. It is a tool for practical living and communication, and it can initially be employed for inquiry into its own assumptions and patterns. Through discrimination and attentive observation, the mind can help distinguish between what is transient and what is unchanging, between the mental story of “me” and the bare sense of being. When the mind is turned inward and simplified—especially by remaining with the sense “I Am” without adding any attributes—it becomes quieter and more transparent, less able to obscure the underlying awareness.

Yet the mind cannot itself deliver final realization, because it is an object within awareness and not awareness itself. Seeking truth solely through mental activity remains bound to the very limitation that must be seen through. In Maharaj’s perspective, the aim is not to perfect or accumulate knowledge in the mind, but to recognize that one’s true nature is prior to all mental modifications. When this is clear, the mind may continue to function for worldly purposes, but it is no longer taken as “me”; it is seen as an impersonal, spontaneous movement in consciousness, a useful servant that has ceased to be mistaken for the master.