Ramana Maharshi Quotes

Seeing God without seeing the Self, one sees only mental image. Only he who has seen Himself has seen God, since he has lost individuality, and now sees nothing but God.

There must be a subject to know the good and evil. Thatsubject is the ego.

Good thoughts keep off bad thoughts. They must themselves disappear before the state of realization.

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

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

All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble. If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it you would be free.

Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

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.

Peace is the inner nature of humankind. If you find it within yourself, you will then find it everywhere.

What is illusion? M.: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish. Generally people want to know about illusion and do not examine to whom it is. It is foolish. Illusion is outside and unknown. But the seeker is considered to be known and is inside. Find out what is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant and unknown.

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.

To know one's Self is to be blissful always.

You are the witness of the three bodies: the gross, the subtle, and the causal, and of the three times: past, present and future, and also this void. In the story of the tenth man, when each of them counted and thought they were only nine, each one forgetting to count himself, there is a stage when they think one is missing and do not know who it is; and that corresponds to the void. We are so accustomed to the notion that all that we see around us is permanent and that we are this body, that when all this ceases to exist we imagine and fear that we also have ceased to exist.

A higher power is leading you; be led by the same. It knows what to do and how to do it.

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

Your true nature is that of infinite spirit. The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind.

What comes will also go. What always is will alone remain.

Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.

Instead of indulging in mere speculation, devote yourself here and now to the search for the Truth that is ever within you.

The Self is the one Reality that always exists, and it is by the light of the Self that all other things are seen.

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

Thoughts come and go. Feelings come and go. Find out what it is that remains.

Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.

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

Misery does not exist in reality but only in mere imagination.

All are seeing God always. But they do not know it.

The greatest obstacle to enlightenment is getting past your delusion that you are not already enlightened.

Guru, God and Self are One

'I Am' is the name of God, God is none other than the Self.

Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized.

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

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

Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself.

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

Self-reform automatically brings about social reform.

If you observe awareness steadily, this awareness itself becomes the Guru that will reveal the Truth.

A man does not have to go and find where his eyes are in order to see. The heart is there, always open to you, if you care to enter it, always supporting your movements, although you may be unaware of it. It is perhaps more correct to say that the Self is the Heart. Really the Self is the centre and is everywhere aware of itself as the Heart or Self-awareness.

Silence is also conversation.

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

Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all, and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate Truth.

A realized one sends out waves of spiritual influence in his aura, which draw many people towards him. Yet he may sit in a cave and maintain complete silence.

Remain still, with the conviction that the Self shines as everything yet nothing, within, without, and everywhere.

Whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is a good action. Everything which is done with the stain of desire and with agitation filling the mind is classified as a bad action.

When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.

All that is required to realise the Self is to “Be Still.

It will come all right in the end. There is the steady impulse of your determination that sets you on your feet again after every downfall and breakdown. Gradually the obstacles are all overcome and your current becomes stronger. Everything comes right in the end. Steady determination is what is required.

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.

Concentration of the mind is in a way common to both Knowledge and Yoga. Yoga aims at union of the individual with the universal, the Reality. This Reality cannot be new. It must exist even now, and it does exist.