Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Quotes
A prominent teacher of Advaita Vedanta who is best known for his teachings on non-duality and self-realization. His approach was direct and experiential, encouraging seekers to explore the nature of their own consciousness. His book, "I Am That," is a significant text in the study of Advaita Vedanta, offering profound insights into the nature of the self and reality. His teachings are valued for their simplicity and depth, guiding individuals toward understanding their true essence beyond the mind and ego.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Quotes
A prominent teacher of Advaita Vedanta who is best known for his teachings on non-duality and self-realization. His approach was direct and experiential, encouraging seekers to explore the nature of their own consciousness. His book, "I Am That," is a significant text in the study of Advaita Vedanta, offering profound insights into the nature of the self and reality. His teachings are valued for their simplicity and depth, guiding individuals toward understanding their true essence beyond the mind and ego.
Pure knowledge is not imparted by another; it comes unmasked. It is the one that is listening: it is your own true nature.
Nature is neither pleasant nor painful. It is all intelligence and beauty. Pain and pleasure are in the mind.
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.
Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change; there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behavior. You need not aim at these - you will witness the change all the same. For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention.
The unexpected and unpredictable is real.
To know that you are neither the body nor mind, watch yourself steadily and live unaffected by your body and mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead. It means you have no vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.
It is only your self-identification with your mind that makes you happy or unhappy. Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self-created and break the chains of attachment and revulsion. Keep in mind your goal of freedom, until it dawns on you that you are already free, that freedom is not something in the distant future to be earned with painful efforts, but perennially one's own, to be used! Liberation is not an acquisition but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it.
To go beyond you need alert immobility, quiet attention.
The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.
The sum and substance of my teaching is this: Don't be dishonest to your vital breath; worship that only, abide in that only, accept it as yourself. And when you worship in this manner, it can lead you anywhere, to any heights- this is the quintessence of my talks.
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.
The problem is not yours - it is your mind's only. Begin by disassociating yourself from your mind. Resolutely remind yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours.
If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. Its your restlessness that causes chaos.
Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it - and just BE.
Self-remembrance, awareness of 'I am' ripens him powerfully and speedily. Give up all ideas about yourself and simply be.
There is no 'my self' and 'his self'. There is the Self, the only Self of all. Misled by the diversity of names and shapes, minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves.
You are not in this world. This world is inside you.
Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.
You are so accustomed to think of yourselves as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: "I know nothing, I want nothing." Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all my knowledge is ignorance, that "I do not know" is the only true statement the mind can make....I do not claim to know what you do not. In fact, I know much less than you do.
The desire for truth is the highest of all desires, yet, it is still a desire. All desires must be given up for the real to be.....When all search ceases, it is the Supreme State.
What you need will come to you if you do not ask for what you do not need.
All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.
