Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes & Sayings

In dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you are love itself, embracing all. Personal love, however intense and genuine, invariably binds; love in freedom is love of all. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far.
The secret is in action - here and now.
It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself.
Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect
- whatever your idea of perfection may be.
All you need is courage. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

And spirituality or what you call "religion" is mainly to understand this: that you don't require anything, you are a part of the totality, or reality. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

All I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect — Nisargadatta Maharaj

The man who carries a parcel is anxious not to lose it -- he is parcel-conscious. The man who cherishes the feeling 'I am' is self-conscious. The jnani holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is the very heart of awareness. We call him digambara clothed in space, the Naked One, beyond all appearance. There is no name and shape under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Don't try to understand! It's enough if you do not misunderstand. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

The unexpected and unpredictable is real. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

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. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.
"I Am That" - pg 188 — Nisargadatta Maharaj

You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what you do not need — Nisargadatta Maharaj

When you go deep inside nothing is all there is. There is no 'I am'. The 'I am' merges in the Absolute. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

A quiet mind is all you need. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

To work in the world is hard, to refrain from all unnecessary work is even harder. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Learn to live without self-concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person. You think you know yourself when you know what you are. But you never know who you are. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that. There is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance without investigation. Suffering is a call for enquiry, all pain needs investigation. Don't be too lazy to think. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and is therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you want to know your true nature, you must have yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands revealed. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own ... Stand still, be quiet. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Love tells me, i am everything.
Wisdom tells me, i am nothing.
And in between flows my life. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Whatever happens, happens to you by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Whatever you forget, is not the truth, always remember that. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

You may die a hundred deaths without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

You have put so much energy into building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it. In fact, demolition is easy, for the false dissolves when it is discovered. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

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. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

The interval between the beginning of 'I am' (birth or waking) and when you lose it again (death or deep sleep) is called 'time. — Nisargadatta Maharaj