Top 316 Quotes & Sayings by Ramana Maharshi - Page 4

Good thoughts keep off bad thoughts. They must themselves disappear before the state of realization.

To the extent we behave with humility, to that extent good will result.

When one makes the mind stick to one thought, the mind becomes rock-steady and the energy is conserved.

The fact is that the mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The mind is fattened by new thoughts rising up. Therefore it is foolish to attempt to kill the mind by means of the mind. The only way of doing it is to find its source and hold on to it. The mind will then fade away of its own accord.

Turn the mind inward and cease thinking of yourself as the body; thereby you will come to know that the self is ever happy. Neither grief nor misery is experienced in this state.

If you hold this feeling of ‘I’ long enough and strongly enough, the false ‘I’ will vanish leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent ‘I’, consciousness itself

The Seeker himself becomes the knower. The thing to be known is already there. There is nothing to be known afresh. More-over there are no two things. There is only the seer, the knower.

Does one require proof of one's own being? Only remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.

Take no notice of the ego and its activities, but see only the light behind.

Till you reach the state of jnana and thus wake out of maya you must do social service by relieving suffering whenever you see it. But even then you must do it without ahankara, i.e., without the sense of 'I am the doer', but with the feeling 'I am the Lord's tool'.

You are the witness of the three bodies: the gross, the subtle, and the causal, and of the three times: past, present and future, and also this void. In the story of the tenth man, when each of them counted and thought they were only nine, each one forgetting to count himself, there is a stage when they think one is missing and do not know who it is; and that corresponds to the void. We are so accustomed to the notion that all that we see around us is permanent and that we are this body, that when all this ceases to exist we imagine and fear that we also have ceased to exist.

Discover your undying Self and be immortal and happy.

A man does not have to go and find where his eyes are in order to see. The heart is there, always open to you, if you care to enter it, always supporting your movements, although you may be unaware of it. It is perhaps more correct to say that the Self is the Heart. Really the Self is the centre and is everywhere aware of itself as the Heart or Self-awareness.

The more you prune a plant, the more it grows. So too the more you seek to annihilate the ego, the more it will increase. You should seek the root of the ego and destroy it.

We are always peace. To get rid of the idea that we are not peace is all that is required.

Remove the Ego and Avidya (Ignorance) is gone. Look for it, the ego vanishes and the real Self alone remains.

To ask the mind to kill itself is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So you must turn inward and see where the mind rises from, and then it will cease to exist.

The fact is that you are not the body. The Self does not move but the world moves in it. You are only what you are.

There is nothing new to gain. On the other hand a man must lose his ignorance. That is all.

See who is the subject; and this inquiry leads you to pure Consciousness beyond the subject.

Seeing God without seeing the Self, one sees only mental image. Only he who has seen Himself has seen God, since he has lost individuality, and now sees nothing but God.

The State of liberated Being can be reached only by "dying"; but (this) dying does not consist in destruction of the body; one should understand that true death is the extinction of the ideas "I" and "mine."

When your real, effortless, joyful grateful nature is realized, it will not be inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life.

The normal self is the mind. The mind is with limitations. But pure Consciousness is beyond limitations, and is reached by investigation into the "I."

The seat of Realization is within and the seeker cannot find it as an object outside him. That seat is bliss and is the core of all beings. Hence it is called the Heart.

The state of self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been.

Instead of indulging in mere speculation, devote yourself here and now to the search for the Truth that is ever within you.

Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being.

Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality. Whatever you think it is, it looks like that.

When we turn the mind inwards, God manifests as the inner consciousness.

Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.

The main factor in meditation is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters.

Remain still, with the conviction that the Self shines as everything yet nothing, within, without, and everywhere.

There is no seeing. Seeing is only being.

Doubts arise because of an absence of surrender.

The Self is the heart, self-luminous. Illumination arises from the heart and reaches the brain, which is the seat of the mind. The world is seen with the mind; so you see the world by the reflected light of the Self.

In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.

The experience of not forgetting consciousness alone is the state of devotion which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines as the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Love itself is the actual form of God. That is pure bliss. Call it pure bliss, God, Self, or what you will. That is devotion, that is realization and that is everything.

Jnana is given neither from outside nor from another person. It can be realised by each and everyone in his own Heart. The jnana Guru of everyone is only the Supreme Self that is always revealing its own truth in every Heart through the being-conciousness 'I am, I am.' The granting of true knowledge by him is initiation into jnana. The grace of the Guru is only that Self-awareness that is one's own true nature. It is the inner conciousness by which he is unceasingly revealing his existence. This divine upadesa is always going on naturally in everyone.

The source of the ego is God.

You do not like to suffer yourself. How can you inflict suffering on others?

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is giving oneself up to the original cause of one's being. Do not delude yourself by imagining this source to be some God outside you. One's source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it.

Realization consists of getting rid of the false idea that one is not realized.

Realisation is nothing new to be acquired. It is already there, but obstructed by a screen of thoughts. All our attempts are directed to lifting this screen and then realisation is revealed.

...Bliss is not something to be got. On the other hand you are always Bliss. This desire [for Bliss] is born of the sense of incompleteness. To whom is this sense of incompleteness? Enquire. In deep sleep you were blissful. Now you are not so. What has interposed between that Bliss and this non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are Bliss.

God's grace consists in the fact that He shines in the heart of every one as the Self; that power of grace does not exclude any one, whether good or otherwise.

What exists in truth is the Self alone. The world, the individual soul and God are appearances in it. Like silver in mother-of-pearl, these three appear at the same time and disappear at the same time. The Self is that where there is absolutely no 'I thought'. That is called 'Stillness'. The Self itself is the world; the Self itself is 'I'; the Self itself is God; all is Siva, the Self.

By happy fraternity amongst themselves, the embodied beings get the supreme peace. Then all this earth shines like one house. When the men, the embodied beings treat each other with equal respect and have good brotherly feelings amongst themselves, great peace and harmony abound. Then all this earth shines like one house. The whole world shines like the one dwelling house of the entire human family.

Grace is within you. Grace is your self. Grace is not something to be acquired from others. If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary is to know its existence is in you. You are never out of its operation.

By constantly keep one's attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea.

See what helps you to keep away all other thoughts and adopt that method for your meditation.

There is no mind to control if you realise the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth. In the realised man, the mind may be active or inactive, the self remains for him.

There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now but that it is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self; you are already That.

There is nothing so simple as being the Self. It requires no effort, no aid. One has to leave off the wrong identity and be in his (her) eternal, natural, inherent state.

The ultimate truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that needs to be said. Only mature minds can grasp the simple truth in all its nakedness.

Guru, God and Self are One

God illumines the mind and shines within it. One cannot know God by means of the mind. One can but turn the mind inwards and merge it in God.

Food affects the mind. For the practice of any kind of yoga, vegetarianism is absolutely necessary since it makes the mind more pure and harmonious.

The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, which is the basis of the perception of the world and everything else, you find the ego does not exist at all and neither does all this creation that you see.

The Self is here and now, it is the only Reality. There is nothing else.