Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes

Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost.

For me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing.

There is no such thing as unconsciousness for it is not experienceable. We infer unconsciousness when there is a lapse in memory or communication.

All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.

The attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.

Give your real being a chance to shape your life. You will not regret it.

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

Once you say 'I want to find Truth', all your life will be deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a most radical transformation.

There is in the body, a current of energy, affection and intelligence, which guides, maintains and energizes the body. Discover that current and stay with it.

Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be are expressions of your longing for happiness.

The window is the absence of the wall, and it gives air and light because it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush in.

To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need nothing. Be what you are--conscious being--and don't stray away from yourself.

There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged.
 Such moments are most desirable, 
for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. 
This is detachment -- 
when the old is over and the new has not yet come. 
If you are afraid, the state may be distressing, 
but there is really nothing to be afraid of. 
Remember the instruction: 
Whatever you come across -- go beyond.

Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is not true-which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know, that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation, because non investigation is the main cause of bondage.

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

Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any.

When I say 'I am', I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever

You're free. You've taken this burden of being a human being on yourself. You're free.

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.

To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net [the matrix]. It is not hard to do so, as the net is full of holes. Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love and happiness, and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and you overeat. You want friendship and you exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them - your very seeing them will make them go away.

To know that you are a prisoner of your mind is the dawn of wisdom.

All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well.

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.

Your true meaning cannot be grasped or captured by words. You can never be equated with any words, because you are prior to words.

If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such or so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

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

There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your self.

It is your restlessness that causes chaos.

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

Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination.

Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all else.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.

In your world everything must have a beginning and an end. If it does not, you call it eternal. In my view, there is no such thing as beginning and end - these are all related to time. Timeless being is entirely in the now. Being and not-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The immutable Reality lies beyond space and time.

It does not matter much what happens.

All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.

Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting. It is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life

By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.

There is nothing wrong with duality as long as it does not create conflict. Multiplicity and variety without strife is joy. In pure consciousness there is light. For warmth, contact is needed. Above the unity of being is the union of love. Love is the purpose of duality.

Stop, look, investigate, ask the right questions, come to the right conclusions and have the courage to act on them and see what happens. The first steps may bring the roof down on your head, but soon the commotion will clear and there will be peace and joy.

There is no need of a way out! Don't you see that a way out is also part of the dream All you have to do is see the dream as dream. ...Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done.

Freedom is from something. What are you to be free from? Obviously, you must be free from the person you take yourself to be, for it is the idea you have of yourself that keeps you in bondage.

The unexpected and unpredictable is real.

Leave your mind alone, that is all. Do not go along with it. After all, there is no such thing as mind apart from thoughts which come and go obeying their own laws, not yours. They dominate you only because you are interested in them.

All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny yourself nothing -- glue your self infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond.

It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.

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

Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all.