The work in question rests on a foundation of actual encounters with Nisargadatta Maharaj, rather than on invented or imagined dialogues. The text is drawn from conversations that took place in his modest room in Bombay, where seekers came to inquire into the nature of the Self. These exchanges were conducted in Marathi and then rendered into English, preserving the living, dialogical character of the meetings. The book thus presents itself not as a theoretical treatise, but as a record of spoken guidance given in response to concrete questions.

These conversations were recorded, noted down, and translated, then shaped into the question‑and‑answer format that readers encounter. Maurice Frydman played a central role in this process, compiling and organizing the material and providing translation from Marathi into English. While the editor did perform some arrangement and light editing for clarity, the substance of the teaching remains grounded in the original dialogues. The result is a text that reflects authentic exchanges between a teacher of Advaita and those who approached him as spiritual seekers.

Because the book arises from real conversations, it carries the immediacy and unpredictability of live inquiry. Each dialogue reflects a meeting between a particular questioner and Nisargadatta’s uncompromising perspective on the Self, rather than a systematized philosophy constructed after the fact. The authenticity of these interactions gives the book its distinctive flavor: the sense of sitting in a small room in Bombay, listening as questions are posed and answered in real time. For a reader, this can serve as a kind of direct participation in satsang, mediated only by translation and editorial care, yet still rooted in the living word of the teacher.