Nisargadatta Maharaj citations

“(…) Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. 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 consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.”

“The gnani is afraid of nothing. But he pities the man who is afraid. After all, to be born, to live and to die is natural. To be afraid is not. (…).”

“People are afraid to die, because they do not know what is death. The gnani has died before his death, he saw that there was nothing to be afraid of. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. (…) The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description. (…).”

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”

“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.”

“Nothing ever goes wrong.”

“The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.”

“(…) if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen! (…) Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world.”

“(…) Work on, and the universe will work with you. After all the very idea of doing the right thing comes to you from the unknown. Leave it to the unknown as far as the results go, just go through the necessary movements. You are merely one of the links in the long chain of causation. Fundamentally, all happens in the mind only. When you work for something whole-heartedly and steadily, it happens, for it is the function of the mind to make things happen. (…).”

“The source of consciousness cannot be the object in consciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being. (…)”

“(…) Theories are neither right nor wrong. They are attempts at explaining the inexplicable. It is not the theory that matters, but the way it is being tested. (…) Experiment with any theory you like – if you are truly earnest and honest, the attainment of reality will be yours. (…) It is the earnestness that liberates and not the theory.”

“Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Both make the mind restless. (…)”

“(…) In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in the “I am,” which shines in every living being. (…).”

“(…) Pain and suffering are only the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body you must be healthy; to go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. (…).”

“God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.’ Remove the ’here and now’ the ‘I am’ remains, unassailable. (…). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,’ all else is inference (…). The sense ‘I am’ is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (…).”

“(…) I am all and all is me. Being the world I am not afraid of the world. Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. (…) It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and nothing is not afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. (…)”

“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.”

“The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualize and want is of much value.”

“If you need time to achieve something, it must be false. The real is always with you; you need not wait to be what you are.”

“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.”

“You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what you do not need”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Whatever happens, happens to you by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive.”

“(…) As it is natural for the incense stick to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die. Really, it is a matter of very little importance. What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind. I am.”

“One thing is quite clear to me; all that is, lives and moves and has its being in consciousness and I am in and beyond that consciousness. (…)”

“Everything is subjective, but the real is objective. (…) It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is. (…) It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh. (…) Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.”