Top 316 Quotes & Sayings by Ramana Maharshi - Page 2

You are the Supreme Being, and yet thinking yourself to be separate from it, you strive to become united with it. What is stranger than this?

Have faith in God and in yourself; that will cure all. Hope for the best, expect the best, toil for the best and everything will come right for you in the end.

One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happens happen, let us see!' This should be one's practice. Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things.

As you are, so is the world.

The master is within; meditation is meant to remove the ignorant idea that he is only outside. If he is a stranger whom you await, he is bound to disappear also. What is the use of a transient being like that? But so long as you think you are separate or that you are the body, an external master is also necessary and he will appear to have a body. When the wrong identification of oneself with the body ceases, the master will be found to be none other than the Self.

You are already That which you seek.

The ultimate truth is so simple; it is nothing more than being in one’s natural, original state.

Unless one is happy, one cannot bestow happiness on others.

We are so engrossed with the objects, or appearances revealed by the light, that we pay no attention to the light.

The entire Universe is condensed in the body, and the entire body in the Heart. Thus the Heart is the nucleus of the whole Universe.

Bliss is a thing which is always there and is not something which comes and goes. That which comes and goes is a creation of the mind.

By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the one. Surrender is complete only when you reach the stage `Thou art all' and `Thy will be done'.

You have to ask yourself the question 'Who am I?' This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems.

Engage yourself in the living present. The future will take care of itself.

From where does this "I" arise? Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. This is the direct path for all. The mind is merely thoughts. Of all thoughts the thought "I" is the root.

Call it by any name, God, Self, the Heart, or the Seat of Consciousness, it is all the same.

The world is not outside you.

The end of all wisdom is love, love, love.

What message is needed when heart speaks to heart?

Silence is never-ending speech. Vocal speech obstructs the other speech of silence. In silence one is in intimate contact with the surroundings. Language is only a medium for communicating one's thoughts to another. Silence is ever speaking.

Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized.

All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all your trouble. If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it you would be free.

If you go the way of your thoughts you will be carried away by them and you will find yourself in an endless maze.

If one's mind has peace, the whole world will appear peaceful.

Place your burden at the feet of the Lord of the universe who is ever victorious and accomplishes everything. Remain all the time steadfast in the heart, in the Transcendental Absolute. God knows the past, present and future. He will determine the future for you and accomplish the work. What is to be done will be done at the proper time. Don't worry. Abide in the heart and surrender your acts to the Divine.

Silence is most powerful. Speech is always less powerful than silence.

Concentration is not thinking of one thing. On the contrary, it is excluding all thoughts, since all thoughts obstruct the sense of one's true being. All efforts are to be directed simply to removing the veil of ignorance. Concentrating the mind solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from straying outwards is called detachment (vairagya). Fixing them in the Self is spiritual practice (sadhana). Concentrating on the heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. Heart is another name for Self.

The greatest obstacle to enlightenment is getting past your delusion that you are not already enlightened.

Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world. In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is a world also. Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself.

Grace is always present. You imagine it as something high in the sky, far away, something that has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart. When the mind rests in its source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.

When you truly feel this equal love for all, when your heart has expanded so much that it embraces the whole of creation, you will certainly not feel like giving up this or that. You will simply drop off from secular life as a ripe fruit drops from the branch of a tree. You will feel that the whole world is your home.

'I Am' is the name of God, God is none other than the Self.

The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self. Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self. Man’s search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.

It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long sanskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone.

Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state.

Grace is ever present. All that is necessary is that you surrender to it.

Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.

God dwells in you, as you, and you don't have to 'do' anything to be God-realized or Self-realized, it is already your true and natural state. Just drop all seeking, turn your attention inward, and sacrifice your ego mind to the One Self radiating in the Heart of your very being. For this to be your own presently lived experience, Self-Inquiry Meditation is a direct and immediate way.

He who thinks he is the doer is also the sufferer.

...the Lord of the Universe carries the entire burden of this world. You imagine you do. You can hand all your burdens over to His care. Whatever you have to do, you will be made an instrument for doing it at the right time. Do not think you cannot do it unless you have the desire to do it. Desire does not give you the strength for doing. The entire strength is the Lord's.

Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be blissful always.

A higher power is leading you; be led by the same. It knows what to do and how to do it.

The solution to your problem is to see who has it.

Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner 'I', you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.

If a man considers that he is born, he cannot avoid the fear of death. Let him find out if he has been born or if the Self has any birth. He will discover that the Self always exists, that the body that is born resolves itself into thought and that the emergence of thought is the root of all mischief. Find from where thoughts emerge. Then you will be able to abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of death.

Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.

Happiness is your real nature. You identify with yourself with the body and mind, feel it's limitations, and suffer. Realize your true self in order to open the store of happiness. That true self is the reality, the Supreme Truth, which is the self of all the world you now see, the self of all the selves, the One real, the Supreme, the Eternal self - as distinct from the ego or the bodily idea for the self.

You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being. Then you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then you begin spiritual practices to transcend these non-existing limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them.

All that one gives to others one gives to one's self. If this truth is understood, who will not give to others?

Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all, and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate Truth.

Beyond the belief that something can be lost, there is nothing to lose.

Realisation is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage

All are seeing God always. But they do not know it.

Forgetfulness of your real nature is true death; remembrance of it is rebirth.

There is nothing wrong with God's creation. Mystery and Suffering only exist in the mind.

See who is the doubter, who is the thinker. It is the ego. Hold it; the other thoughts will die away - the ego will be left pure. See the source from where the ego arises and abide in it. That is pure consciousness.

By the inquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything.

What comes will also go. What always is will alone remain.

The thing to do is to concentrate on the seer and not on the seen, not on the objects, but on the Light which reveals them.