Ramana Maharshi Quotes

Nobody doubts that he exists, though he may doubt the existence of God. If he finds out the truth about himself and discovers his own source, this is all that is required.

Love is verily the heart of all religions.

Once the current of awareness of the self is set afoot, it becomes everlasting and continuous by intensification.

The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters.

See what helps you to keep away all other thoughts and adopt that method for your meditation.

Even the structure of the atom has been found by the mind. Therefore the mind is subtler than the atom. That which is behind the mind, namely the individual soul, is subtler than the mind.

It is within your competence to think and thus to get bound or to cease thinking and thus be free.

There is no mind to control if you realise the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realised man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him.

Whatever be the means adopted, you must at last return to the Self, so why not abide as the Self here and now?

If you approach the ocean with a cup, you can only take away a cupful; if you approach it with a bucket you can take away a bucketful.

The self is known to every one but not clearly. You always exist.

An unawakened person sees only his mind, which is merely a reflection of the light of pure consciousness arising from the Heart.

He whose pure mind turns inward and searches whence does this 'I' arise, knows the Self and merges in You, the Lord, as a river into the sea.

The "I" thought is said to be the sum total of all thoughts. The source of the "I" thought has to be inquired into.

Mind is but a poor reflection of the radiant Heart.

If you make the thief the policeman there will be lots of investigation but no arrests will ever be made.

Self-inquiry is the process and the goal also. 'I am' is the goal and the final reality. To hold to it with effort is self-inquiry. When spontaneous and natural it is realization.

The activity affected by causes like fainting, sleep, excessive joy, grief, possession by spirits, fear etc goes to the heart, its own place.

Unless one is happy, one cannot bestow happiness on others.

Realization consists of getting rid of the false idea that one is not realized.

The more you prune a plant, the more it grows. So too the more you seek to annihilate the ego, the more it will increase. You should seek the root of the ego and destroy it.

Does one require proof of one's own being? Only remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.

He that sees the Lord in the temple, the living body, by seeking Him within, can alone see Him, the Infinite, in the temple of the universe, having become the Endless Eye.

Realisation is our nature. It is nothing new to be gained. What is new cannot be eternal. Therefore there is no need for doubting if one would lose or gain the Self.

The enemy hates the ego, which the seeker wants to kill; thus, like the anvil to the goldsmith, he is actually a friend.

The man who has the sense of the body being himself cannot possibly worship God as formless; whatever worship he makes will be worship in form alone, not otherwise.

Consciousness is indeed always with us. Everyone knows 'I am!' No one can deny his own being.

All that one gives to others one gives to one's self. If this truth is understood, who will not give to others?

The world is not outside you.

There is a state when words cease and silence prevails.

When the mind, one-pointed and fully focused, knows the supreme silence in the Heart, this is true learning.

The Seeker himself becomes the knower. The thing to be known is already there. There is nothing to be known afresh. More-over there are no two things. There is only the seer, the knower.

If you hold this feeling of ‘I’ long enough and strongly enough, the false ‘I’ will vanish leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent ‘I’, consciousness itself

That is the ego which rises and sinks periodically. But you exist always. That which lies beyond the ego is consciousness - the Self.

The place where even the slightest trace of the 'I' does not exist, alone is Self.

There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will, neither path nor achievement. This is the final truth.

Because truth is exceedingly subtle and serene, the bliss of the Self can manifest only in a mind rendered subtle and steady by assiduous meditation.

Peace is for the purification of one's mind. Power is for the growth of the community. Having established the community with power, one should then establish supreme peace.

Self-reform automatically brings about social reform.

I see only what you see, but I notice what I see.

Let knowledge be guessed by the sign of equality to all beings.

Even the structure of the atom has been found by the mind.

Then all this earth shines like one house.

Such happiness is relative and is better called pleasure or satisfaction.

The Self itself is the world; the Self itself is 'I'; the Self itself is God; all is Siva, the Self.

It is said that the heart is in the microcosm just as the orb of the sun in the macrocosm. The mind in Sahasrara is like the disc of the moon.

Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope.

In truth, you are spirit. The body has been projected by the mind, which itself originates from Spirit.

There are no impediments to meditation. The very thought of such obstacles is the greatest impediment.

Truth burns up all karma and frees you from all births.