Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes

Having never left the house you are looking for the way home

Do what you believe in and believe in what you do. The rest is a waste of time and energy.

What is beautiful? Whatever is perceived joyfully is beautiful. Bliss is the essence of beauty.

To go beyond the mind, you must be silent and quiet. Peace and silence, silence and peace - this is the way beyond. Stop asking questions.

The world you perceive is made of consciousness; what you call matter is consciousness itself.

Find what is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale reflection is our sense of 'I'

Believe me, there is no goal, nor a way to reach it. You are the way and the goal, there is nothing else to reach except yourself.

Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.

The old grooves must be erased in your brain, without forming new ones. You must realize yourself as the immovable, behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.

Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking.

All that a guru can tell you is: 'My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you take yourself to be.'

When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.

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.

You are not the body. You are the immensity and infinity of consciousness.

Words can bring you only up to their own limit; to go beyond, you must abandon them. Remain as the silent witness only.

Forget the known, don't be all the time immersed in your experiences.

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

Being oneself is completely beyond all motivation. You cannot be yourself for some reason. You are yourself, and no reason is needed.

Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand.

Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers.

Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem.

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

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

When I look beyond the mind, I see the witness. Beyond the witness, there is infinite intensity of emptiness and silence.

Whatever can be understood or perceived can never be the eternal Truth. The Unknown is the Truth.

The real does not die, the unreal never lived.

Concentration, Full Confidence, Pure Will. With these 3, what cannot be accomplished?

It is not the right advice that liberates, but the action based on it.

Come to the conclusion: I am unborn, I was unborn and I shall remain unborn

Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.

I am that by which I know 'I am'

Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found.

The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen.

The universe is but a partial manifestation of your limitless capacity to become.

Awareness neither dies nor is re-born. It is the changeless reality itself.

Suffering is a call for inquiry, all pain needs investigation.

In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife; you are the love between two.

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.

The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it.

The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater. Give up all and you gain all.

I am told I was born. I do not remember.

The first steps in self-acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further.

When you desire the common good, the whole world desires with you. Make humanity's desire your own and work for it. There you cannot fail.

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.

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

You are not in this world. This world is inside you.

Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it.

To see the unreal is wisdom. Beyond this lies the inexpressible.

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.