Nisargadatta Maharaj - I Am That (1973)

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You need both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
To me you are your own God. But if you think otherwise, think to the end. If there be God, then all is God's and all is for the best. Welcome all that comes with a glad and thankful heart. And love all creatures. This too will take you to your Self.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Those who know only scriptures know nothing. To know is to be. I know what I am talking about; it is not from reading, or hearsay.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Those who make plans will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be born.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
I am' itself is God. The seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all. The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
All kind of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient, and only 'I am' endures.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
One thing is quite clear to me; all that is, lives and moves and has its being in consciousness and I am in and beyond that consciousness.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
When effort is needed, effort will appear. When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, (…) Don't be afraid, don't resist, don't delay. Be what you are. There is nothing to be afraid of. Trust and try. Experiment honestly. Give your real being a chance to shape your life. You will not regret.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. (…) What makes the present so different? Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself. All definitions apply to your body only and its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Don't rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you don't have and you don't have what you are not. You can only give what you are – and of that you can give limitlessly.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God, apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is God, is the tiny little spark: 'I am,' apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Do not undervalue attention. It means interest and also love. To know, to do, to discover, or to create you must give your heart to it – which means attention. All the blessings flow from it.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Whatever name you give it; will, or steady purpose, or onepointedness of the mind, you come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. (…) We are complex beings, at war within and without. We contradict ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of yesterday. No wonder we are stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot of difference.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Discard all traditional standards. Leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue you will have no peace.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
If you look into living process closely, you will find cruelty everywhere, for life feeds on life. This is a fact, but it does not make you feel guilty of being alive. (…) From the animal point of view, being killed is not the worst form of dying; surely preferable to sickness and senile decay. The cruelty lies in the motive, not in the fact. Killing hurts the killer, not the killed.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Desiring a state of freedom from desire will not set you free. Nothing can set you free, because you are free. See yourself with desireless clarity, that is all.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
A spark of truth can burn up a mountain of lies.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Is not meanness also a form of madness? And is not madness the misuse of the mind? Humanity's problem lies in this misuse of the mind only. All the treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind rightly. (…) Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Want the best. The highest happiness, the greatest freedom. Desirelessness is the highest bliss. (…) Only God's energy is infinite – because he wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will be fulfilled. The higher your aims and vaster desires, the more energy you will have for their fulfillment. Desire the good of all and the universe will work for you. But if you want your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
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.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Be fully aware of your own being and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off yourself and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well. (…) True happiness is spontaneous and effortless.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Make your world perfect, by all means. If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one. Either see the world as a play or work at it with all your might.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
The source of consciousness cannot be the object in consciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Pain and suffering are only the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body you must be healthy; to go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Everything is subjective, but the real is objective. (…) It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is. (…) It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh. (…) Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.

Nisargadatta Maharaj