Ramana Maharshi Quotes

102 Sourced Quotes

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

Ramana Maharshi
Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality. Whatever you think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc. Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge.

Ramana Maharshi
Just as the sun gives light to the moon this heart bestows the effulgence on the mind.

Ramana Maharshi
You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.

Ramana Maharshi
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.

Ramana Maharshi
Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.

Ramana Maharshi
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.

Ramana Maharshi
We see only the script and not the paper on which the script is written. The paper is there, whether the script is on it or not. To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal—an illusion—since it rests upon paper. The wise person looks upon both paper and script as one.

Ramana Maharshi
The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world. Cotton made into various clothes we call by various names. Gold made into various ornaments, we call by various names. But all the clothes are cotton and all the ornaments gold. The one is real, the many are mere names and forms.

Ramana Maharshi
For one stationed in the Self, Sahasrara will be of pure effulgence. There: if any mental formulation falls within its presence, it will not live.

Ramana Maharshi
What is called mind is a wondrous power existing in Self. It projects all thoughts. If we set aside all thoughts and see, there will be no such thing as mind remaining separate; therefore, thought itself is the form of the mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the mind.

Ramana Maharshi
In the Heart's cavity, the sole Brahman as an ever-persisting 'I' shines direct in the form of the Self. Into the Heart enter thyself, with mind in search or in deeper plunge. Or by restraint of life-movement be firmly poised in the Self.

Ramana Maharshi
Knowledge itself is 'I'. The nature of (this) knowledge is existence-consciousness-bliss.

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

Ramana Maharshi
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.

Ramana Maharshi
As in the night when the sun is not present, one sees the light in the moon, the man who is not present in the heart, sees merely the mind.

Ramana Maharshi
There is no greater mystery than this: being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.

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

Ramana Maharshi
The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'Who am I?', destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.

Ramana Maharshi
The ego's phenomenal existence is transcended when you dive into the source from where the I'-thought rises

Ramana Maharshi
The deeply learned ones know the mind as the directly expressed meaning of the supreme knowledge. The heart is the meaning aimed at. The Supreme is none other than the heart.

Ramana Maharshi
All bad qualities centre round the ego. When the ego is gone, Realisation results by itself. There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.

Ramana Maharshi
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'.

Ramana Maharshi
Ishta-devata and Guru are aids - very powerful aids on this path. But an aid to be effective requires your effort also. Your effort is a sine qua non. It is you who should see the sun. Can spectacles and the sun see for you? You yourself have to see your true nature. Not much aid is required for doing it!

Ramana Maharshi
The activity affected by causes like fainting, sleep, excessive joy, grief, possession by spirits, fear etc goes to the heart, its own place.

Ramana Maharshi