Visitor: Why did this Consciousness arise?
Maharaj:” You are both the question and the answer. All your questions come from your identification with the body. How can any questions relating to that which was prior to the body and Consciousness be answered? There are yogis who have sat in meditation for many, many years seeking answers to this question, but even they haven’t understood it. And yet you are complaining?”
Visitor: It is a great mystery.
Maharaj:” It’s a mystery only to the ignorant. To the one not identified with the body, it is no longer a mystery.”
Visitor: Maharaj cannot convey it to us?
Maharaj:” I keep telling you but you don’t listen.”
Visitor: Does Maharaj see us as individuals?
Maharaj:” There are no individuals; there are only food bodies with the knowledge ‘ I Am’. There is no difference between an ant, a human Being, and Isvara; they are of the same quality. The body of an ant is small, an elephant is large. The strength is different, because of size, but the life-force is the same. For knowledge, the body is necessary.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj