Nisargadatta Maharaj was one of the great sages of modern India. The talks in this collection are transcribed from tape recordings made during the question and answer periods between April 1980 and July 1981 between seekers from all over the world and Nisargadatta Maharaj, at the age of 84.

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 ..."

He continued to hammer at our egos, insisting that we can only know through our personal experience, not through the second-hand knowledge of others and of books. His words are used like a surgeon's scalpel, used to cut away the concepts we have been given since birth. Before this form came - what was I? He was very sharp with his answers. In the last two years of his life, he would not entertain any questions pertaining to this worldly life and its improvement. He spoke only the plain truth. Prior to Consciousness continues the most revealing and illuminating dialogues which began with I Am That.