Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, fully Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, born Maruti Shivrampant Kambli

Indian Philosopher and Spiritual Teacher of Advaita Vedanta

"Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering"

"Nothing can block you so effectively as compromise, for it shows lack of earnestness, without which nothing can be done."

"Nothing extraordinary can happen to a consciousness knowing exactly what it wants."

"Nothing is done by me, everything just happens. I do not expect, I do not plan, I just watch events happening, knowing them to be unreal."

"'Nothing is me', is the first step. 'Everything is me' is the next."

"Nothing troubles me. I offer no resistance to trouble - therefore it does not stay with me. On your side there is so much trouble. On mine there is no trouble at all. Come to my side."

"Now coming to a very subtle situation, what is it in you that understands this knowledge ‘you are’ – or from your standpoint ‘I am’ without a name, title or word? Subside in that innermost center and witness the knowledge ‘I am’ and ‘just be’; this is the bliss of being – the ‘swarupananda’."

"Now what is it that we are concerned with? We are dealing with the physical form, which is made up of, and fed by, the five elements. In that form are operating the life force (the vital breath) and this consciousness that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the sense of being, the sense of existence. The latter is the ‘sentience’, which is the gift of the consciousness."

"Of all the people the knower of the self, the liberated man, is the most trustworthy. But merely to trust is not enough. You must also desire. Without desire for freedom of what use is the confidence that you can acquire freedom? Desire and confidence must go together. The stronger your desire, the easier comes the help. The greatest Guru is helpless as long as the disciple is not eager to learn. Eagerness and earnestness are all-important. Confidence will come with experience. Be devoted to your goal and devotion to him who can guide you will follow. If your desire and confidence are strong, they will operate and take you to your goal, for you will not cause delay by hesitation and compromise. The greatest Guru is your inner self. Truly, he is the supreme teacher. He alone can take you to your goal and he alone meets you at the end of the road. Confide in him and you need no outer Guru. But again you must have the strong desire to find him and do nothing that will create obstacles and delays. And do not waste energy and time on regrets. Learn from your mistakes and do not repeat them."

"Of all the affections the love of oneself comes first. Light and love are impersonal."

"Of the unknowable only silence talks. The mind can talk only of what it knows. If you diligently investigate the knowable, it dissolves and only the unknowable remains. But with the first flicker of imagination, interest in the unknowable is obscured and the known comes to the fore. The known, the changing, is what you live with- the unchangeable is of no use to you. Only when you are satiated with the changeable and long for the unchangeable, are you ready for the turning round and stepping into what can be described, when seen from the level of the mind, as emptiness and darkness. The mind craves content and variety, while reality is, to the mind, contentless and invariable."

"Of course, if you have a chance to help somebody, by all means do it and promptly too, don't keep him waiting till you are perfect. But do not become a professional do-gooder."

"On my true, whole, homogenous state just a small ripple appeared, the news came, ‘I am’. That news made all the difference, and I started knowing this; but now I have known my true state, so I understand my true state first, and then I understand that this ripple is coming and going on my true state. While in your case, you take interest in the ripple and don’t take interest in your true state."

"On the state of ‘non-beingness’, the beingness appeared together with manifestation, creating a feeling as if ‘I am’; who that is, is not important, only ‘I am’ is important. The initial humming of the beingness as ‘I am, I am’ is the duality. But who accepts the duality? The ‘non-beingness’ accepts duality with the beingness. The Absolute ‘non-being’ state, by assuming the being state, becomes dual in manifestation."

"Once I have realized the nature of this consciousness of ‘I am’, how it has appeared on my true nature and that it is truly only an illusory thing. When I have fully known and realized this, then the consciousness of ‘I am’ (within which is contained the vast universe), dissolves or merges in Me."

"Once it is understood that ‘I am’ is purely ‘I am’, formless and not that shackled body form – then no liberation is called for. To be stabilized in that beingness, which has no name and form, that itself is liberation."

"Once my Guru told me: 'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions and trances and became very quiet and simple. I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.'"

"Once the body and the sense of being(‘I am’) goes what remains is the Original, which is unconditioned, without attributes, and without identity; that on which this temporary state of the consciousness and the three states and the three ‘gunas’ have come and gone. It is called ‘Parabrahman’, the Absolute."

"Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living."

"Once the vital breath leaves the body and this ‘I amness’ ceases to exist, the ‘I amness’ will not know that ‘It was’. The ‘I amness’ is not permanent and will forget its association with is body."

"Once we have accepted the definition of Reality of being that which persists or is at all times the same, then we know that Reality can never change. The objective world and the consciousness of ‘I am’ (In deep sleep there is no feeling of ‘I am’) is constantly changing, so from this we can infer that whatever changes is only an appearance and not a Reality."

"Once you can say with confidence born from direct experience; 'I am the world, the world is myself', you are free from desire and fear on one hand and become totally responsible for the world on the other. The senseless sorrow of mankind becomes your sole concern."

"Once you have seen that you are dreaming, you shall wake up. But you do not see, because you want the dream to continue. A day will come when you will long for the ending of the dream, with all your heart and mind, and be willing to pay any price; the price will be dispassion and detachment, the loss of interest in the dream itself."

"Once you have understood that you are nothing perceivable or conceivable, that whatever appears in the field of consciousness cannot be your self, you will apply yourself to the eradication of all self-identification, as the only way that can take you to a deeper realization of your self. You literally progress by rejection - a veritable rocket."

"Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone."

"Once you realize that all happens by itself, (call it destiny, or the will of God or mere accident), you remain as witness only, understanding and enjoying, but not perturbed."

"Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy."

"Once you reject what you are not, whatever finally remains, the leftover, is yourself – your true nature. Presently, whatever you know is ‘I am’, this ‘I am’ is the product of the five elements. Out of the elements comes the food body and because of the food body, that ‘I amness’ is sustained. And you are also not that ‘I am’. ‘I am’ is the taste, the fragrance of this food body. The ultimate ‘you’ has no fragrance, no taste, no touch of ‘I amness’."

"Once you subside into the consciousness, the factual state of Reality shall be revealed to you with the knowledge that will emanate out of you intuitively, like spring water. This will enable you to discern not what is real and unreal, but, most importantly, to realize what ‘I am’. And who could be that one? Surely not an individual who is trapped in the mind-shell, but that one is the knowledge ‘I am’ – the consciousness."

"One cannot see rays of light, as such; they reflect only when they encounter another object. Similarly ‘I amness’ is the interruption because of these five elements and three ‘gunas’. That is why the feeling ‘I am’ is felt; but without the feeling of ‘I am’, still you are."

"One has to understand that the search for reality, God, Guru and the search for the self are the same, when one is found all are found. When ‘I am’ and ‘God is’ become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one."

"One is the Absolute, two is consciousness, and three is space. Where there was no knowledge ‘I am’ that is number one, later on there is the sense ‘I am’ that is number two, and then there is space – number three."

"One must be in the ‘I am’ continuously and effortlessly with the idea- ‘I am not the body’. All unhappiness is caused by claiming ‘doership’ of actions, do not claim ‘doership’ and unhappiness will vanish. Even the ‘I am’ is a mirage, time-bound and would disappear."

"One who is completely rid of coming and going, and finally, one who is completely rid of one’s very own concept that ‘I am’, is completely liberated."

"Only that individual who has lost his individuality has merged with the ‘Parabrahman’. So the individuality must go. The entire world moves on the basis of one concept, and that is ‘I am’ – the fundamental concept of one’s individuality."

"Only the people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was long lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and then only talk of helping the world."

"Only the sense 'I am' persisted- unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changing until you are able to go beyond."

"Only when the very idea of changing is seen as false and abandoned, the changeless can come into its own... All change affects the mind only. To be what you are, you must go beyond the mind, into your own being. It is immaterial what is the mind that you leave behind, provided you leave it behind for good."

"Only your sense ‘I am’ though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic you can change the ‘I am’ into ‘I am not’. In the very denial of your being you assert it. Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your imagination."

"Originally, I am untainted – uncovered by anything, without stigma – since nobody existed prior to me. Nor do I entertain any concepts about somebody existing, before me. Everything is in the form of the manifested world, after the appearance of the knowledge ‘I am’ with the body. Together with the body and the indwelling ‘I amness’ everything is. Prior to the appearance of this body and the knowledge ‘I am’, what was there?"

"Pain and pleasure go always together. Freedom from one means freedom from both. If you do not care for pleasure, you will not be afraid of pain."

"Pain and pleasure happen, but pain is the price of pleasure, pleasure is the reward of pain...To know that pain and pleasure are one is peace."

"Past and future are in the mind only - I am now."

"Paths and movements cannot transport you into Reality, because their function is to enmesh you within the dimensions of knowledge, while the Reality prevails prior to it. To apprehend this, you must stay put at the source of your creation, at the beginning of the knowledge ‘I am’. So long as you do not achieve this, you will be entangled in the chains forged by your mind and get enmeshed in those of others."

"Pay no attention [to your thoughts]. Don't fight them. Just do nothing about them, let them be, whatever they are. Your very fighting them gives them life. just disregard. Look through."

"Perceptions based on sensations and shaped by memory imply a perceiver, whose nature you never cared to examine. Give it your full attention, examine it with loving care and you will discover heights and depths of being which you did not dream of, engrossed as you are in your puny image of yourself."

"Playing with various approaches may be due to resistance to going within, to the fear of having to abandon the illusion of being something or somebody in particular."

"Please understand that there is only one thingto be understood, and that is that you are the formless, timeless unborn."

"Pleasure and pain lost their sway over me. I was free from desire and fear. I found myself full, needing nothing."

"Pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have and to do things to be happy when in reality it is just the opposite."