Great Throughts Treasury

"By giving attention to your living, feeling and thinking, you free yourself from them and go beyond them. Your personality dissolves and only the witness remains. Then you go beyond the witness. Do not ask how it happens. Just search within yourself....In one [person] you desire and fear, in the other [witness] you are unaffected by pleasure and pain and are not ruffled by events. You let them come and go."

"By its very nature pleasure is limited and transient. Out of pain desire is born, in pain it seeks fulfilment, and it ends in the pain of frustration and despair. Pain is the background of pleasure, all seeking of pleasure if born in pain and ends in pain."

"By reading various books and listening to everything else, you cannot become a ‘mahatma’, but only through that knowledge ‘I am’. Don’t concentrate on the body; because of a body you call yourself male or female. Just hold on to that knowledge ‘I am’ only without body sense – beyond name and form or design. But you have to employ name, form and design for the sake of worldly activities."

"By staying in this knowledge (‘I am’) you can dissolve the subtle body. The pill – the three states (waking, sleep and beingness) – dissolves. Then there is no coming, till then the subtle body will remain. So long the food essence is there the ‘I am’ knowledge is there, once the essence is exhausted, knowingness goes."

"Can any of your concepts grasp the total, the Ultimate? Have you understood that knowledge itself is ignorance? If it were real it would have been there eternally – it would not have had a beginning and an end. Now the experience ‘I am’ is felt, earlier that experience was not. When it was not, no proof was called for, but once it is, lots of proof is required."

"Catch hold of that ‘I am’ only and all obstacles will evaporate. If you correctly understand me, you will be beyond the realm of body-mind. Many a times it happens that teachings are misunderstood. Because the ‘I am’ is there, these questions arise, If the ‘I am’ is not there, no questions can arise. In the realm of ‘I am’ anything is possible, but if I were alert enough, do you think I would have been in this body? The Jnani is the one who knows that beingness, the world and Brahman are unreal. Having understood the ‘I am’, I transcend it and came to the conclusion that all the three entities are unreal, and then what more remains to be liquidated? The ‘Parabrahman’ is without attributes and I am ‘Parabrahman’, I am not the beingness, the world nor Brahman"

"Cease being fascinated by the content of your consciousness. When you reach the deep layers of your true being, you will find that the mind's surface-play affects you very little."

"Cease from looking for happiness and reality in a dream and you will wake up. You need not know all the 'why' and 'how', there is no end to questions. Abandon all desires, keep your mind silent and you shall discover."

"Cling to the one thing that matters, hold on to ‘I am’ and let go all else. This is ‘sadhana’. In realization there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is remembered."

"Collect and strengthen your mind and you will find that your thoughts and feelings, words and actions will align themselves in the direction of your will."

"Compassion is the foundation of earnestness. Compassion for yourself and others, born of suffering, your own and others."

"Concepts come into the sense of being ‘I am’ because of the vital breath that causes the mind flow. Mind means words, so thoughts are there – they are the concepts. Look at your root, the child consciousness, and finish it off."

"Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death."

"Consciousness in its purity is ‘Turiya’ (pure ‘I am’ or the fourth state), but I am beyond it and living in (as) the ‘Turiyatita’ (Reality or the Absolute)."

"Consciousness is like a cloud in the sky and the water drops are the content. The cloud needs the sun to become visible, and consciousness needs being focused in awareness."

"Consciousness is the sense of knowingness ‘I am’ without words, and it appeared unknowingly and unsolicited. Only in the realm of knowingness ‘I am’ – the consciousness – can a world be, and so also an experience. Hold on to this knowingness ‘I am’ and the fount of knowledge will well up within you, revealing the mystery of the Universe; of your body and psyche; of the play of the five elements, the three ‘gunas’ and ‘prakriti-purusha’; and of everything else. In the process of this revelation, your individualistic personality confined to the body shall expand into the manifested universe, and it will be realized that you permeate and embrace the entire cosmos as your ‘body’ only. This is known as the ‘Pure Super-knowledge’ – ‘Shuddhavijnana’."

"Conviction! That is the only technique for the ‘sadhana’, if you are thinking of any initiation…only the words of the guru that you are not the body! That is the initiation. Stay put there, in that state. It is spontaneous, natural, that ‘shraddha’ (faith). What is that faith? ‘I am’ without words, whatever you are that is the faith. Now you have to elevate yourself to the state of ‘Brahman’; this is the condition you have to develop."

"Day by day your conviction that the knowledge. ‘I am’ is God must grow. Don’t care about the body, by constant meditation, when God is pleased, you will have complete knowledge in the realm of Consciousness. You may go anywhere, but don’t forget that the knowledge, ‘I am’ itself is God."

"Deal with the knowledge ‘I am’. This ‘I amness’ is there first, isn’t it? – Primary. That ‘I’ must be there before you receive this sickness of ‘samskara’ (obstacles). Initially you have to understand that the knowledge ‘I am’ is a product of the food essence. When you know that you are, the world also is."

"Death is considered to be a traumatic experience, but understand what happens. That which has been born, the knowledge ‘I am’, will end. That knowledge, which was limited by this body, will then become unlimited, so what is to be feared?"

"Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly."

"Delayed reaction is wrong reaction. Thinking, feeling and action must be a unity and happen together with the situation requiring them."

"Deliberate daily exercise in discrimination between the true and the false and renunciation of the false is meditation."

"Delve deeply into the sense ‘I am’ and you surely discover that the perceiving center is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy."

"Desire is of the past, fear is of the future."

"Desirelessness is the highest bliss."

"Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life, given to the search for truth and to helping people, and realization makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous, by removing for good the obstacles in the shape of desires and fears and wrong ideas."

"Did you ever see the moon and all before the appearance of the beingness, Brahma or this illusion? Although the ‘I am’ is ample and plenty, it is an illusion that induces multiplicity. This manifest world is a dynamic play of the five elements and there is no scope for an individual. Just as a diamond radiates from all sides, similarly in deep meditation you will realize that you are this entire manifestation."

"Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not being, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. You must watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self ........be aware of that state which is only, simply being, without being this or that or the other."

"Discrimination is very necessary to understand what I am saying. It is only after the arrival of consciousness that we try to understand ourselves. Consciousness is the so-called birth, birth means the three aspects: waking state, deep sleep and the knowledge ‘I am’. Once I understand what this birth is, then the whole mystery is solved. Since I have thoroughly known what this birth principle is, I will know very well at that happening of so-called death. I shall observe the departure of the vital breath, the language and the ‘I amness”, there is no question of death."

"Disregard names and shapes, don't be attached to them; your attachment is your bondage."

"Dive deep within yourself and you will find it easily and simply. Go in the direction of 'I am'."

"Do not be afraid of freedom from desire and fear. It enables you to live a life so different from all you know, so much more intense and interesting, that, truly, by losing all you gain all."

"Do not bother about anything you want, or think, or do, just stay put in the thought and feeling, ‘I am’, focusing ‘I am’ firmly in your mind. All kinds of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient and only the ‘I am’ endures."

"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 blessings flow from it."

"Do nothing, absolutely nothing! Just be, be the knowledge ‘I am’ only and abide there. To imbibe this, meditate on beingness only. Catch hold of the knowledge ‘I am’ in meditation. In this process, the realization occurs that ‘I’ the Absolute am not the ‘guna’ ‘I am’; therefore in meditation nothing is to be retained in memory. Nevertheless something will appear on the memory screen, but be unconcerned, just be, do nothing. Refrain from grasping anything in meditation; the moment you do, otherness begins, and so does duality. Nothing is to be done. Then all your riddles will be solved and dissolved. ‘Moolmaya’ – that is, the primary illusion – will release her stranglehold on you and will get lost."

"Do understand that the mind has its limits: to go beyond, you must consent to silence."

"Do understand that you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, dont go against it, don’t thwart it. Allow it to fulfill itself. All you have to do is to give attention to the obstacles created by the foolish mind."

"Do what you feel like doing. Don't bully yourself. Violence will make you hard and rigid. Do not fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. let anything happen - good or bad. But dont let yourself be submerged by what happens."

"Doership is a myth born from the illusion of 'me' and 'the mine'."

"Don’t get involved in anything, stay in the consciousness ‘I am’ and don’t go on a intellectual binge again. Consciousness indicates to the consciousness, expounds the knowledge; but you will not dwell there, you embrace the body. The knowledge ‘I am’ tells the knowledge about itself to the ‘I am’ only."

"Don’t roam about, don’t come here either. Abide in the quietude, peace, stability. Here we are not engaged in any buying or selling. That knowledge ‘I am’, without concepts, is evoked or stimulated by the consciousness and peace which emanate from this place."

"Don’t try to understand! It’s enough if you do not misunderstand."

"Don’t you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither seeking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which ‘I am’ is timelessly present. Soon you will realize that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is all. To seek there is no need; you would not seek what you already have. You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the teacher. It enables you to make the first step - and then your trust is justified by your own experience."

"Don't anticipate and don't regret, and there will be no pain. It is memory and imagination that cause suffering."

"Don't identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God, the Unknown, then you merely say: 'I do not know what I am'. If you know God as you know yourself, you need not say it. Best is the simple feeling 'I am'. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don't think of failure. There can be no failure in this understanding."

"Don't identify yourself with the world and you will not suffer."

"Don't look for quick results, there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will under go a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking and feeling, purity in your behavior. You need not aim at these - you will witness the change all the same."

"Dwell on the principle (‘I am’) of that state for a sufficiently long time. All the greatness, significance and magnificence of the entire world is dwelling in the principle ‘you are’ and ‘I am’ That is the prop and that itself is the greatness. There is no other remedy, no other path, except implicit faith and conviction in the Self."

"Each of must say ‘I am’ and realize it. There is no ‘you’, and there is no ‘me’, as individual entities. Until the ‘I am’ thought was there, there was no manifestation; both came about simultaneously."