Great Throughts Treasury

"All that happens, happens in and to the mind, not to the source of the ‘I am’. 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."

"All the glories will come with mere dwelling on the feeling ‘I am’. It is the simple that is certain, not the complicated. Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the easy, the always available. Why not give an honest trial to what I say? It may look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a mighty tree. Give yourself a chance."

"All the universe will be your concern; every living thing you will love and help most tenderly and wisely."

"All these sufferings are man-made and it is within man's power to put an end to them. God helps by facing man with the results of his actions and demanding that the balance should be restored. Karma is the law that works for righteousness; it is the healing hand of God."

"All these things in the objective world are inseparable from their attributes. An attribute by its very nature depends upon attributes. That knowledge ‘I am’, is also an attribute, therefore, the ‘I amness’ one way or another, also has to depend on something."

"All this conceptual cycle is created by you because you have the concept ‘I am’, which you must eradicate yourself. When you are in deep sleep is there any experience of pleasure and pain or birth and death? What does that mean? It means that the concept ‘I am’ has vanished."

"All this is the play of concepts. The primary concept ‘I am’ appears spontaneously. It likes ‘I am’; it loves that ‘I am’ state. Devouring ever more concepts, it gets totally enmeshed in them. And what is the source of all concepts? This primary feeling ‘I am’. But never forget the fact that it itself is a concept, time-bound. And so it is all mental entertainment."

"All this knowledge has dawned on me, I am not the knowledge. The knowledge ‘I am’, and all its manifestations, are understood. In understanding, I am not that."

"All this process of communication, expounding, etc., will go on so long as this conscious presence is available, and all this is to merely satisfy the concept ‘I am’, and you the Absolute, are not the primary concept ‘I am’."

"All this profound talk is nothing but mental entertainment. As you go further into spirituality you will realize that ‘I am’ is the very God or soul of an infinite number of universes, but the ‘I am’ is again entertainment. All my talks are conceptual entertainment."

"All this talking and discussion we are doing here is because of the consciousness ‘I am’. This consciousness ‘I am’ is illusory and completely unreal to the ‘Jnani’. Ultimately, until you can leave off completely the feeling of personality you will not be able to fully comprehend the Absolute Reality."

"All those praises sung by the ‘Vedas’ are only for that tiny little pinch ‘I am’. The moment you start making a design of that ‘I amness’ you are getting into deep waters. This incense holder is silver; you have the knowledge that it is silver. What is the shape, color, or design of that knowledge? If all knowledge is formless, could there be a form, design or color to the knowledge ‘I am’? Could it be subject to sin or merit?"

"All three states (waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep) are sleep to me. My waking state is beyond them. As I look at you, you all seem asleep, dreaming up words of your own. I am aware, for I imagine nothing. It is not samadhi (peaceful trance state), which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a state of mind unaffected by the mind, free from past and future....To be a person is to be asleep."

"All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it."

"All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don't prevent it."

"All yogas and practices come through the consciousness of ‘I am’ only, which is itself an illusion. Whatever is happening in this illusion, yoga, ‘Kundalini’ or anything else, is relative and time-bound."

"All you have to do is to see the dream as dream."

"All you know is the person, the identity - which is not a person - you do not know, for you never doubted, never asked yourself the crucial question - 'Who am I'. The identity is the witness of the person and the practice consists in shifting the emphasis from the superficial and changeful person to the immutable and ever - present witness."

"All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny yourself nothing -- glue your self infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond."

"All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life - this is the quickest way to a change of your world."

"All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness. Unless you have already considered these matters carefully, listening to me once will not do."

"All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well...desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to deceive oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy."

"All your experiences and visions depend on your knowledge ‘I am’ and this itself is going to dissolve. For this knowledge there are no customers, no devotees, because they want something concrete in their hand, but when your knowingness itself is going to dissolve, is it possible to hold on to something?"

"All your moments of spirituality are based on the ‘I am the body’ idea. This knowledge ‘I am’ is going to remain for a short period. This will be very clear to you when you remain in your real position. Until then accept whatever concepts of spirituality you like. Until you know your true state you will accept all the hearsays because you don’t know the truth."

"All your problems arise because you have defined and therefore limited yourself. When you do not think yourself to be this or that, all conflict ceases. Any attempt to do something about your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in freedom from desire. You have enclosed yourself in time and space, squeezed yourself into the span of a lifetime and the volume of a body and thus created the innumerable conflicts of life and death, pleasure and pain, hope and fear. You cannot be rid of problems without abandoning illusions… Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable."

"And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgment and appreciation."

"Any embodied person with the knowledge ‘I am’ carries on his activities in the world with the name only. That inner core, the ‘I am’ has no shackles. Once it is understood that I am that ‘I am’ only, and not this shackled form, then no liberation is called for, that itself is liberation."

"Any knowledge, art or science, comes through this ‘I am’ consciousness. You can become perfect in any art, skill, or science, but this is still ultimately all false or impermanent, for the ‘I am’ itself is a false or impermanent thing. I cannot really tell you the story of Myself for It cannot be expressed in words."

"Are we all here because of our volition to be born or has this knowingness appeared in us unknowingly? This beingness has come to you without your knowledge, but you are using it according to your own volition. I want to sentence that inviduality to death. Is it not justice that I pronounce this sentence? So think carefully. The individuality must go. ‘Parabrahman’ is purest justice and Truth."

"Are you not even before you have spoken the words ‘I am’? Stay put there only. There begins your spirituality, the foremost ‘you’, ‘I am’ without words, before the beginning of words. Be there; out of that grows the experience ‘I am’. Witnessing happens to that principle which prior to your saying the words ‘I am’. There is no such thing as deliberate witnessing. Witnessing just happens, by itself."

"As far as I am concerned, my teaching is simple: trust me for a while and do what I tell you. If you persevere, you will find that your trust was justified."

"As it is natural for the incense stick to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die. Really, it is a matter of very little importance. What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind. I am."

"As long as there is consciousness, its witness is also there. The two appear and disappear together."

"As long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed. Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to discover our real being."

"As long as you are a beginner certain formalised meditations, or prayers may be good for you. But for a seeker for reality there is only one meditation - the rigorous refusal to harbour thoughts. To be free from thoughts is itself meditation....You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don't get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it....Watch your thoughts and watch yourself watching the thoughts. The state of freedom from all thoughts will happen suddenly and by the bliss of it you shall recognize it."

"As long as you are pleased with the lesser, you cannot have the highest. Whatever pleases you, keeps you back."

"As long as you are wearing this concept ‘I am’ you will be involved with all the concepts. When this concept ‘I am’ departs there will be no memory left that ‘I was’ and ‘I had’ those experiences; the very memory will be erased."

"As long as you feel competent and confident, reality is beyond your reach. Unless you accept inner adventure as a way of life, discovery will not come to you."

"As long as you identify with the body-mind you are conditioned. Once you stabilize in the knowledge ‘I am’ unconditionally you are the manifest ‘I amness’ – no more an individual. In the manifested state of ‘I amness’ there is no question of your doing, because you are no more an individual. Whatever happens, happens in your consciousness. Whatever happens through this, you also know it will happen, but there is no question of doing or being anything."

"As soon as the mind is ready the sun shines on it."

"As long you have an attribute you have desire. From where has this attribute come? It has come from this consciousness ‘I am’, but his again has only appeared on your true State, which does not change."

"As the acceptance of pain is the denial of the self, and the self stands in the way of true happiness, the wholehearted acceptance of pain releases the springs of happiness."

"As you are now, the personality is only an obstacle. Self-identification with the body may be good for an infant, but true growing up depends on getting the body out of the way. Normally, one should outgrow body-based desires early in life. Even the Bhogi, who does not refuse enjoyments, need not hanker after the ones he has tasted. Habit, desire for repetition, frustrates both the Yogi and the Bhogi."

"As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there."

"Ashrams are not made, they happen. You cannot start nor prevent them."

"Ask yourself such questions as: 'Was I really born?' 'Am I really so-and-so? 'How do I know that I exist?' 'Who are my parents?' 'Have they created me, or have I created them?' 'Must I believe all I am told about myself?' 'Who am I, anyhow?'"

"Assiduously investigate everything that crosses your field of attention. With practice the field will broaden and investigation deepen, until they become spontaneous and limitless."

"At first ‘no one’ is. Instantly, one is, and then two. The subject of the talk is: How did these two reduce to one, and finally to nothing? Out of nothingness spontaneously the sense of beingness is felt - this is one. Later, when the sense of beingness knows ‘I am’ duality begins. Then after the duality has arisen, the sense of being identifies with the form, and so on. Actually to refer to the sense of being as ‘one’, is not quite correct. Since in this state only the sense of being prevails, where is the need to say even ‘one’? With the appearance of otherness (duality), both no.1 and no.2 appear simultaneously. To say ‘something is’, ‘I’ must be there first. If ‘I’ am not, I cannot say ‘something is’. So the fundamental principle of spirituality is that ‘I must be there, before anything else can be. This ‘I’ is the beingness which if first."

"At most I would say ‘you worship that ‘I am’ principle, be one with it and that would disclose all the knowledge’. That’s all I will say, but the subtlest part is this, from deep sleep to waking state. To abide in that you must have an intensely peaceful state. In that state witnessing of the waking state happens. You must go to that limit, but it is very difficult."

"At present you identify yourself with your body and mind. Therefore, in the initial stages of your spiritual practice, you should reject the identity by imbibing the principle that ‘I am’ is the vital breath and the consciousness only and not the body and mind. In the later stages, the vital breath and the consciousness – that is the knowledge ‘I am’ – merge in one’s ultimate nature."