Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes

Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around you; your next, to long intensely for liberation. The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide.

The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness.

When you go beyond awareness, there is a state of nonduality, in which there is no cognition, only pure being. In the state of nonduality, all separation ceases.

You are so used to the support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again.

You will get to your maturity quickly if you stay in the nothingness.

When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love.

What you need will come to you if you do not ask for what you do not need.

You are already perfect, only you don't know it. Learn to know yourself and you will discover wonders.

Unless you know yourself, what else can you know?

How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot. It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false.

Laugh with people laughing, cry with people crying, but don't fall into the river of world illusion. Stay on the banks.

Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.

If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and pain and watch them. Externalization is the first step to liberation.

Nobody ever fails in Yoga....It is slow in the beginning and rapid in the end. When one is fully matured, realization is explosive.

It does not matter much what happens.

One who is afraid of time becomes a prey of time. But time itself becomes a prey of that one who is not afraid of it.

Who are you?”, my answer would be: “Nothing in particular. Yet, I am.

To find reality you must be real in the smallest daily action; there can be no deceit in the search for truth.

Pure knowledge is not imparted by another; it comes unmasked. It is the one that is listening: it is your own true nature.

Sadhana is a search for what to give up. Empty yourself completely.

To go beyond you need alert immobility, quiet attention.

Surrender to your own self, of which everything is an expression.

The unexpected and unpredictable is real.

Cooperate with your destiny, don't go against it, don't thwart it. Allow it to fulfill itself.

When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two.

Knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control yourself, know yourself.

In reality there are no others, and -helping yourself you help everybody else.

Meet you own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide.

The desire for truth is the highest of all desires, yet, it is still a desire. All desires must be given up for the real to be.....When all search ceases, it is the Supreme State.

Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow out of your childishness.That is all.

The legitimate function of the mind is to tell you what is not. But if you want positive knowledge, you must go beyond the mind.

The unchangeable can only be realised in silence. Once realised, it will deeply affect the changeable, itself remaining unaffected.

Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.

I ask you only to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on. Just try, make a beginning-it is not as hard as you think.

Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.

Your own self is your ultimate teacher. The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal

Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it - and just BE.

All is a play in consciousness. All divisions are illusory. You can know the false only. The true you must yourself be.

All separation, every kind of estrangement and alienation is false. All is one.

Until we can look at fear and accept it as the shadow of personal existence, as persons we are bound to be afraid.

Let the dream unroll itself to its very end. You cannot help it. But you can look at the dream as a dream, refuse it the stamp of reality.

Your burden is of false self-identifications—abandon them all.

Self-remembrance, awareness of 'I am' ripens him powerfully and speedily. Give up all ideas about yourself and simply be.

Knowing that you are nothing is Wisdom, Knowing that you are everything is Love.

To expound and propogate concepts is simple, to drop all concepts is difficult and rare

Between the banks of pleasure and pain flows the river of life. If you spend much time on either bank you will miss out on life.

We are the creators and creatures of each other, causing and bearing each other's burden.

All you can teach is understanding. The rest comes on its own.

The mind is what it thinks. To make it true, think true.