338 Quotes by Nisargadatta Maharaj

By all means be selfish; the right way. Wish yourself well, labour at what is good for you. Destroy all that stands between you and happiness. Be all; love all; be happy; make happy. No happiness is greater.

Everybody does the same mistake: refusing the means, but wanting the ends. You want peace and harmony in the world, but refuse to have them in yourself.

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

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.

To believe that you depend on things and people for happiness is due to ignorance of your true nature; to know that you need nothing to be happy, except Self-knowledge, is wisdom.

By focusing the mind on “I am,” on the sense of being, “I am so-and-so” dissolves; “I am a witness only” remains and that too submerges in “I am all.” Then the all becomes the One and the One – yourself.

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

The ultimate point of view is that there is nothing to understand, so when we try to understand, we are only indulging in acrobatics of the mind. Whatever you have understood, you are not. Why are you getting lost in concepts? You are not what you know, you are the knower.

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.