Mrs. Kelly Hack asked if the waking and the dream states might be imagined to be excursions from the natural state of the Self.
M.: There must be a place for excursions. The place must also lie outside oneself. It is not possible in the true nature of the Self.
D.: But I meant that it might be imagined to be so.
M.: One might as well imagine the true nature of the Self.
D.: The illustration of the screen is very beautiful.
M.: The cinema screen is not sentient and so requires a seer, whereas the screen of the Self includes the seer and the seen—rather, it is full of light.
The pictures of the cinema-show cannot be seen without the help of darkness, for you cannot have a show in broad daylight. Similarly, the mind thinks thoughts and sees objects owing to an underlying ignorance (). The Self is pure knowledge, pure light where there is no duality. Duality implies ignorance. The Knowledge of the Self is beyond relative knowledge and ignorance; the Light of the Self is beyond the ordinary light and darkness. The Self is all alone.