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Nisargadatta Maharaj

127 quotes

• “To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is God’s and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.’ Remove the ’here and now’ the ‘I am’ remains, unassailable. (…). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,’ all else is inference (…). The sense ‘I am’ is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (…).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer teacher (Guru) is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher, that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “That which sees all this, and the nothing too, is the inner teacher. He alone is, all else appears to be. He is your own self (swarupa), your hope and assurance of freedom, find him and cling to him and you will be saved and safe.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. (…).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) Make your entire life an expression of your faith and love for your teacher – this is real dwelling with the Guru.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) All those who proclaim their own greatness and uniqueness are not gnanis. (…) Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipotent deity is a clear sign of ignorance.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “'I am' itself is God. The seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all. The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says 'I am everything'. Wisdom says "I am nothing'. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in the “I am,” which shines in every living being. (...).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) All kind of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient, and only ‘I am’ endures.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) When we are absorbed in other things, in the not-self, we forget the self. There is nothing unnatural about it. But, why forget the self through excess of attachment? Wisdom lies in never forgetting the self as the ever-present source of both the experiencer and his experience.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. (…) What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels, life and light must not quarrel; behavior must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. (…)”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) everything is inter-linked. And therefore everything has numberless causes. The entire universe contributes to the least thing. A thing is as it is because the world is as it is. (…)”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “If you look into living process closely, you will find cruelty everywhere, for life feeds on life. This is a fact, but it does not make you feel guilty of being alive. (…) From the animal point of view, being killed is not the worst form of dying; surely preferable to sickness and senile decay. The cruelty lies in the motive, not in the fact. Killing hurts the killer, not the killed.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Desire for embodied existence is the root-cause of trouble. (...) Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge –liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream. Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and peace.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Discard all traditional standards. Leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue you will have no peace. (…)”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) Theories are neither right nor wrong. They are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory that matters, but the way it is being tested. (…) Experiment with any theory you like – if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours. (…) It is the earnestness that liberates and not the theory.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) A liberated man is extremely law-abiding. But his laws are the laws of his real self, not of his society. These he observes, or breaks, according to circumstances and necessity. But he will never be fanciful and disorderly.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Don’t rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated in you and by you. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being. You will find that in that light there is love and infinite energy.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) To see myself in everybody and everybody in myself most certainly is love.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When the sense of distinction and separation is absent, you may call it love.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them, and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you. (…) By the same power that brought you so far, that prompted your heart to desire truth and your mind to seek it. It is the same power that keeps you alive. You may call it Life or the Supreme.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you do not know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control yourself – know yourself.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is no chaos in the world, except the chaos which your mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at its very centre is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from other things. (...).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) Is not meanness also a form of madness? And is not madness the misuse of the mind? Humanity’s problem lies in this misuse of the mind only. All the treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind rightly. (…) Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) there is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.(…) Examine closely and you will see that the mind is seething with thoughts. It may occasionally go blank, but it does it for a time and reverts to its usual restlessness. (...).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) It is like taking food. All you can do is to bite off, chew and swallow. All else is unconscious and automatic. Listen, remember and understand – the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. (…).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. (…).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) I am all and all is me. Being the world I am not afraid of the world. Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. (…) It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and nothing is not afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. (…)”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realize the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. (…).”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) Those who make plans will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be born.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. (…) What makes the present so different? Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, (…) Don’t be afraid, don’t resist, don’t delay. Be what you are. There is nothing to be afraid of. Trust and try. Experiment honestly. Give your real being a chance to shape your life. You will not regret.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) In the now you are both the movable and the immovable. (…). Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present, changeless reality, inexpressible, but solid like a rock.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your vision.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought ‘I am’ is the polishing cloth. Use it.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness. All the objects of consciousness form the universe. What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence. Whoever goes there, disappears. It is unreachable by words, or mind. You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind. It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) the supreme state (…) is entirely one and indivisible, a single solid block of reality. The only way of knowing it is to be it. The mind cannot reach it. To perceive it does not need the senses; to know it, does not need the mind.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There are the two – the person and the witness, the observer. When you see them as one, and go beyond, you are in the supreme state. It is not perceivable, because it is what makes perception possible. It is beyond being and not being. It is neither the mirror nor the image in the mirror. It is what is – the timeless reality, unbelievably hard and solid.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(…) as long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace – immersed in the deep silence of reality.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The world and the mind are states of being. The supreme is not a state. It pervades all states, but it is not a state of something else. It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter. (…) it leaves no traces. There is nothing to recognize it by. It must be seen directly, by giving up all search for signs and approaches. When all names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only. Reality is one.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Everything is subjective, but the real is objective. (…) It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is. (…) It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh. (…) Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Reality can neither be proved nor disproved. Within the mind you cannot, beyond the mind you need not. In the real, the question ‘what is real?’ does not arise. (...)”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it. Readiness is ripeness. You do not see the real because your mind is not ready for it.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “(...) Anything that implies a continuity, a sequence, a passing from stage to stage cannot be real. There is no progress in reality; it is final, perfect, unrelated.”

  Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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