Great Throughts Treasury

"Each pleasure is wrapped in pain."

"Earnestness is not a yearning for the fruits of one's endeavors. It is an expression of an inner shift of interest away from the false, the unessential, the personal."

"Earnestness, not perfection, is a precondition to self-realization. Virtues and powers come with realization, not before."

"Easier to change, than to suffer. Grow out of your childishness, that is all."

"Either you remain forever hungry and thirsty, longing, searching, grabbing, holding, ever losing and sorrowing, or go out wholeheartedly in search of the state of timeless perfection to which nothing can be added, from which nothing - taken away. In it all desires and fears are absent, not because they were given up, but because they have lost their meaning."

"Establish yourself in the awareness of 'I am'. This is the beginning and also the end of all endeavour."

"Even the sense ìI am is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The 'I' is there even without the 'am'. So is the pure light there whether you say 'I' or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience - that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else."

"Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument. Both the physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired and worn out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in its intensity and duration. Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle."

"Everyone, from plants to creatures, want and know the ‘I am’ to be there, once we have existence, we want it to continue. Your experience is because of the beingness, the world depends on beingness, is it happy or miserable? When your beingness is not there, is it happy or miserable?"

"Everything affects everything. In this universe, when one thing changes, everything changes (all minds are joined). Hence the great power of man in changing the world by changing himself."

"Experience leaves only memories behind and adds to the burden which is heavy enough. You need no more experiences....Learn from the sorrows of others and save yourself your own. It is not experience that you need, but the freedom from an experience."

"False ideas about this 'I am' lead to bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and happiness."

"Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is the service of love, life, of truth, of beauty."

"Fearlessness is the door to the Supreme."

"Find out why you are, what is the cause of your being ‘I am’? Actually you had no knowledge that you are or you were. But at this moment, you know you are. Why is that? Understand its cause. You alone know why you are; why is it offered to you that you are, you alone know. Don’t ask anyone else about it, but inquire by yourself. Don’t bother about others, worry only about yourself. That knowledge ‘I am’ is the product of what, is due to what? How and why? Inquire only into this matter."

"Find the permanent in the fleeting, the one constant factor in every experience."

"First be free of suffering yourself and then only hope of helping others. You do not even need to hope - your very existence will be the greatest help a man can give his fellowmen."

"First know your own mind and you will find that the question of other minds does not arise at all, for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between the minds, Being is consciousness; ‘I am’ applies to all."

"First of all, this knowingness appeared, the knowingness ‘I am’; later on you embraced the body. Hold on to this only, and don’t ask any questions. You came to know yourself, ‘I am’, to abide in that itself is ‘bhakti’, the devotion."

"First purify your vision. Learn to see instead of staring. Also you must be eager to see. You need to both clarity and earnestness for self-knowledge. You need purity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever life you have understood. There is no such thing as compromise in Yoga."

"First there was no message ‘I am’ and also there was no world. Instantly, the message ‘I am’ and this magnificent world materialized out of ‘nothingness’! How amazing! This message ‘I am’ is nothing other that the advertisement of the Eternal Truth."

"First there was the desire to ‘Be’. From this ‘I am’ the air came first and the earth last. Then from earth came the vegetation and many forms of life, each having this ‘I amness’. Because of the five elements you have the body and in that body is the ‘I amness’."

"First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centers of observation, and then realize that immense ocean of pure awareness which is both mind and matter and beyond both."

"First you create a world, then the ‘I am’ becomes a person, who is not happy for various reasons. He goes out in search of happiness, meets a Guru who tells him ‘You are not a person, find out who you are’. He does it and goes beyond."

"First you have what is called ‘atma-bhava’ – that is the ‘I am’ sense. Later, this sense identifies with the form of a body, when it is called ‘aham-akar’, the ‘I am’ form, this is ego. Ego is never a title or name, but just a sense of ‘I am’ prior to words. The waking state, the sleep state and the knowingness ‘I am’ constitute an ego. In the absence of these three states what do you think you are? What would be the evidence of your existence?"

"First, the knowingness knows itself, knowing that ‘I am’. And in the illumination by that ‘I amness’, or that consciousness, everything else is observed. I have had to repeat the same thing again and again, and I do not want to run kindergarten classes of spirituality."

"Food, sleep and procreation, this is happening everywhere in the objective world, whether you are Christian, Hindu or Muslim, but all these experiences are through the consciousness ‘I am’, which is itself an illusion."

"For all beings it is the same experience. Early morning, immediately after waking, just the feeling ‘I am’ is felt inside or the beingness happens, and therefore further witnessing of all else happens. The first witnessing is that of ‘I am’, this primary witnessing is the prerequisite for all further witnessing. But to whom is the witnessing occurring? One that ever is, even without waking, to that ever-present substratum the witnessing of the waking state happens."

"For eternal peace you must dwell in yourself, know how this touch of ‘I am’ has appeared. All other knowledge is of no use in this connection."

"For meditation you should sit with identification with the knowledge ‘I am’ only and have confirmed to yourself that you are not the body. You must dwell only in that knowledge ‘I am’ – not merely the words ‘I am’. And the indwelling knowledge that you are, without words, that itself you are. In that identity you must stabilize yourself. And then whatever doubts you have will be cleared by that very knowledge, and everything will be opened up to you."

"For some time the mental habits may linger in spite of the new vision, the habit of longing for the known past and fearing the unknown future."

"For the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death."

"For this (finding reality) you need a well-ordered and quiet life, peace of mind and immense earnestness. At every moment whatever comes to you unasked, comes from God and will surely help you, if you make the fullest use of it. It is only what you strive for, out of your own imagination and desire, that gives you trouble."

"For, without memory and expectation there can be no time."

"Forget all about physical disciplines in this connection. I am telling you that the indwelling principle ‘I am’, the knowledge that you are, you have to ‘be’ that. Just be that, with that knowledge ‘I am’, hold on to the knowledge ‘I am’."

"Forget the known, don't be all the time immersed in your experiences."

"Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom."

"From consciousness alone we are directed to act. Consciousness appears on Awareness and acts. Awareness does not act, it is the pure witness. The consciousness of you, or Pure consciousness, is the ‘Ishwara’ or God or ‘I am’ state i.e., Universal consciousness. This is not personal consciousness. The whole world is created by the consciousness. When this consciousness is limited to an individual, it becomes the ego, intellect, mind or ‘Jiva’."

"From deep sleep to the waking state, what is it? It is the ‘I am’ state with no words, later the words start flowing and you get involved with the meaning of the words and carry out your worldly life with the meaning of those words – that is the mind. But before the ‘I am’ and waking state, that borderline, there you have to be."

"From deep sleep you wake up, that border is Paravani, beyond words. When you move, become conscious, you feel ‘I am’, then mind takes charge, words take over and you are embroiled in the world. Paravani is other than language, ‘Para’ means ‘other’ or ‘transcend’ – the language of just being without words, but I, The Absolute, am not that"

"From the no-knowing state, the first veil I took was that of ‘I am’, that was formless, nameless. But I embraced the body: I got a form for myself; I got a name for myself. This was the fall. Therefore all sages advise: Give up the shackles of the body! ‘I am the body’ – these are the shackles. Give them up."

"Get to know that ‘I am’ without words, which arises in the morning. Knowing the Self, abiding in the Self-knowledge, is not a mere intellectual knowing. You must be that, and you should not move away from it. Remain firm."

"Give up all ideas about yourself and simply be."

"Give up all questions except one ‘who am I?’ After all the only fact you are sure of is that you ‘are’. The ‘I am’ is certain, the ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality."

"Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be."

"Give your heart and mind to brooding over the ‘I am’, what is it, how is it, what is its source, its life, its meaning. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that is not water, till you reach the life-giving spring."

"Givers there are many; where are the takers?"

"Go beyond 'I-am-the-body' idea and you will find that space and time are in you and not you in space and time."

"Go home, take charge of your father's business, look after your parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be loyal, by simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently. The five senses and the three qualities (gunas) are your eight steps in Yoga. And 'I am' is the Great Reminder (mahamantra). You can learn from them all you need to know. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly. That is all."

"Go on pondering, wondering, being anxious to find a way. Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look for quick results; there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking, charity in your feeling, purity in your behaviour. You need not aim at these - you will witness the change all the same. For, what you are now is the result of inattention and what you become will be the fruit of attention."