Nisargadatta Maharaj

"To expound and propogate concepts is simple,
to drop all concepts is difficult and rare"


Love says "I am everything". Wisdom says "I am nothing". Between the two, 
my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the 
subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am 
both, and neither, and beyond both.


Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that
effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that
unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere verbal
conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute
nothingness of the self-image. 


A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your
mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does
self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and
steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles
without any effort on your part.


When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing,
seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you
uninvited and unexpected. 


"All that a guru can tell you is:
'My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken aboutyourself.
You are not the person you take yourself to be.'"


"There is no such thing as a person.
There are only restrictions and limitations.
The sum total of these defines the person. (...)
The person merely appears to be, like
the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume
and smell of the pot."


By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not
emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause
suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions
and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with
a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.


"There is nothing to practise. To know yourself, be yourself. To be
yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. Just be. Let
your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking"


"Life ceases to be a task
and becomes natural and simple,
in itself an ecstasy