338 Quotes by Nisargadatta Maharaj

How does the personality come into being? By memory. By identifying the present with the past and projecting it into the future. Think of yourself as momentary, without past and future, and your personality dissolves.

In the great mirror of consciousness, images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material - destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence - vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion, “I am so-and-so,” obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.

You do not tidy up a dark room. You open the windows first. Letting in the light makes everything easy. So, let us wait to improve others until we have seen ourselves as we are - and have changed.

To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor non-being, neither living nor non-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror; it becomes a part of living.

The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. To be free in the world, you must die to the world. Then the universe is your own; it becomes your body, an expression and a tool. The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.

Leave alone your desires and fears and give your entire attention to the subject, to he who is behind the experience of desire and fear. Ask: who desires? Let each desire bring you back to yourself.

Forget your past experiences and achievements and stand naked, exposed to the winds and rains of life, and you will have a chance.

The world is full of contradictions; hence your search for harmony and peace. These you cannot find in the world, for the world is the child of chaos. To find order you must search within.

What is in the world cannot save the world; if you really care to help the world, you must step out of it.