Great Throughts Treasury

"Go to the ‘I am’ level and dwell there. Because you at the body level revel in all these objective things, but if you were to go to the ‘I am’ and firmly abide in that, then all these external things will lose grip on you."

"Go to the root and you conclude ‘I am’… yes… yes…, you say ‘I am’, without words. Investigation will reveal that it is a result of the five elemental play. There is another principle that observes the ‘I am’ and the elemental play."

"Go to the source and be established there, then, there is no change. You might have read the Gita, who is there to judge its soundness? The knowledge ‘I am’ has to approve whatever is said there. Establish yourself in the Self, whatever you are prior to the ‘I am’, get established there. When this abidance in the Self is achieved, all talks with sound gibberish."

"Go to the source of both pain and pleasure, of desire and fear. Observe, investigate, try to understand."

"Go within, without swerving, without ever looking outward."

"God (‘I am’) is time-bound. He is only an appearance on our true state. You as the Reality exist first, and only then does the idea of God arise."

"God gives the body and the mind and the Guru shows the way to use them. But returning to the source is your own task."

"Guru means the ‘I amness’ itself, which always reminds you ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am’ – that is guru-guru-guru, like the sound of a motorcar starting. It is a continuous reminder that you are."

"Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost. Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore, cannot be destroyed. Realize that freedom."

"Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person."

"Have your Guru always in your heart and remember his instructions - this is real abidance with the true."

"Having never left the house you asking for the way home. Get rid of wrong ideas, that is all. Collecting right ideas also will take you nowhere. Just cease imagining... Don't rely on your mind for liberation. It is the mind that brought you into bondage. Go beyond it altogether."

"Having realized that I am one with, and yet beyond the world, I became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free - I found myself free - unexpectedly, without the least effort. This freedom from desire and fear remained with me since then. Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious."

"Having seen that you are a bundle of memories held together by attachment, step out and look from the outside. You may perceive for the first time something which is not memory. You cease to be Mr-so-and-so, busy about his own affairs. You are at last at peace. You realize that nothing was ever wrong with the world - you alone were wrong and now it is all over."

"He who is beyond time – is the un-nameable. A glowing ember moved round and round quickly enough appears as a glowing circle. When the movement ceases, the ember remains. Similarly, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world. The ‘I am’ at peace becomes the Absolute."

"Heal your mind and it will cease to project distorted, ugly pictures."

"Here is an article before it came into existence, what was its name? From non-being into the being state, how was it observed? You just felt that touch. Before observing anything we feel the touch of ‘I am’. To realize that state prior to conception, that eternal state, whatever that state is, to abide in that is the highest. Now, for your sake, I attach a name to it, the ‘Parabrahman’ state – the Absolute."

"Hold on to the sense ‘I am’ to the exclusion of everything else. When this mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously; you need only to hold on to the ‘I am’."

"How amusing it is to see someone who thinks of himself as an individual, who thinks of himself as a doer or achiever. Whatever is happening and the experiencing of the happening, takes place in this consciousness when the ‘I am’ arises."

"How can a person limited in time and space, a mere body-mind, a gasp of pain between birth and death, be happy? The very conditions of its arising make happiness impossible."

"How can you retain the pride that I am like this? This ‘I am’ business depends entirely on the food essence. So how can you retain it perpetually – that I shall remain like this only? To extract any essence, water is very necessary, and the water quality is bound to dry up."

"How can you speak or develop any concept unless the primary concept ‘I am’ is available? This primary concept begets further concepts, that is, all other concepts occur to it. However, whatever concept occurs to you, including the primary concept ‘I am’, is not the eternal state."

"How did I get this birth? That is the point on which I persist in finding the answer; I ‘must’ know this. When I was told ‘sattva’, then what is ‘sattva’? ‘Sattva’ is the essence of the five elements. In that essence, in that juice, lies the knowledge ‘I am’; but all that is still of the five elements. Then how did this come about? My guru told me the whole story. Thus I came to know it is ignorance, and I know from experience, that everybody is starting from there. Thus whatever has come about is sheer ignorance, and we are nothing more, that is what my guru told me."

"How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart on it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness."

"How does one recognize this ‘atman’? It is by understanding the knowledge ‘I am’ – the ‘atma-jnana’. Just as space is all-pervading, so the knowledge ‘I am’ is all-pervading, limitless and infinite. How strange, such a supreme principle is treated as though it is a body! All the sufferings are due to this mistaken identity. If you give the highest honor due to it, you will not undergo either suffering or death."

"How was I in the absence of the message ‘I am’ – that is, prior to beingness? I provided you with the name tags for that state. These titles are ‘Parabrahman’, ‘Paramatman’ etc.; they are only pointers to the state, but not the state itself. In the Ultimate they are redundant, extraneous and bogus."

"However long a life may be, it is but a moment and a dream."

"Humility and silence are essential, however advanced."

"I am experiencing the manifest world but prior to it I experience the ‘Bindu’, the point. When I am that Bindu, everything is, the world also is. The Bindu and the world are not two. ‘Bin’ means without and ‘du’ means two, so, no duality. Bindu – the point of ‘I amness’, I experience that. What is it? It is the very experience of the five elements and the three gunas – the whole universe. That is my intimate relationship with that ‘I am’ only – Bindu only."

"'I am' is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree - quite naturally, without a trace of effort."

"'I am' itself is God. The seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all. The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love."

"I am neither conscious nor unconscious. I am beyond the mind and its various states and conditions… A person is a set pattern of desires and thoughts and resulting actions; there is no pattern in my case. There is nothing I desire or fear - how can there be a pattern."

"I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told me that the child, which is you even now, is your real self (‘swarupa’). Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it gets contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am’. Your burden is of false self-identification – abandon them all. My Guru told me – ‘Trust me. I tell you, you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine; your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done.’ I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: ‘I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond.’ I simply followed his instruction, which was to focus the mind on pure being, ‘I am’ and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared - myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence."

"I am talking about knowledge, whatever knowledge the ‘I am’ is, it’s the knowledge. You are living to sustain that knowledge ‘I am’, hence you struggle. If that knowledge is gone, what interest could you have? You are like a doctor taking care, the knowledge ‘you are’ is nourishing and protecting the body. Remember this, if you want to remember me, remember the knowledge ‘I am’. Ancestors told us to meditate on me, remember me, but they also said that the knowledge ‘I am’ is me too."

"I ask you only to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on. Just try, make a beginning -- it is not as hard as you think."

"I ask you only to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on. Just try, make a beginning--it is not as hard as you think."

"I call a ‘siddha’ one who has attained the ultimate, in that ultimate state, the devotee and God, the ‘maya’ (primary illusion) and the ‘Brahman’ have disappeared. And, there is no beneficiary or experiencer of all that, because he is without the concept ‘I am’. He does not know ‘I am’, he does not know that he exists in that state, that knowingness is completely obliterated."

"I can tell you about myself. I was a simple man, but I trusted my Guru. What he told me to do, I did. He told me to concentrate on 'I am' - I did. He told me that I am beyond all perceivables and onceivables -- I believed. I gave him my heart and soul, my entire attention and the whole of my spare time (I had to work to keep my family alive). As a result of faith and earnest application, I realized my self (swarupa) within three years."

"I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am'. and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with, nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all - embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared - myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence."

"I don’t discuss Brahman or Maya; I tell you my story which is your story as well. With Atmajnana (Self-knowledge) the ‘I’ consciousness is not there. Then I don’t worry about God or illusion. The ‘I am’ is the starting point of both misery and happiness."

"I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says I am everything. Wisdom says I am nothing. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both."

"I have been very open, very explicit. I’ve been telling you that you are not the body, you are that knowledge only and that vital breath is your conveyance, a tool by which you carry out your activities, and the knowledge ‘I am’ is very subtle. Because of your knowledge, you are and world is."

"I have experienced all four kinds of speech and transcended them. Rarely will anybody follow this hierarchy to stabilize in the consciousness and transcend consciousness. Starting from ‘Vaikhari’ (word), normally we listen to words; from ‘Vaikhari’ we go to ‘Madhyama’ (mind-thought); in watching the mind we are in ‘Pashayanti’ where the concept formation takes place and from there to ‘Para’ (‘I am’ without words), and finally from ‘Para’ to prior to consciousness. This is the line to follow, but only a rare one follows it – receding, reversing."

"I have many photographs of my Guru here, because my Guru ‘is’ I know ‘I am’. You presume that your Guru is a body-mind and that is a mistake. I do not look upon my Guru like that. He is merged into Consciousness and I see him as that."

"I know that this manifest Brahman or Cosmos is unreal, time-bound and unstable. The message ‘I am’ has spontaneously come and is the root of the manifested world. The message ‘I am’, caught hold of the body as its identity and suffering started. The ‘I am’ happened and the world was cooked up. Even this information, you got later, when the ‘I am’ came into friction, recognized the body, mother and so on, prior to that you did not have the message ‘I am’, you existed, but you did not know."

"I look, but I do not see in the sense of creating images clothed with judgments. I do not describe nor evaluate. I look, I see you, but neither attitude nor opinion cloud my vision. And when I turn my eyes away, my mind does not allow memory to linger; it is at once free and fresh for the next impression."

"I never seek anything from anybody else. Whatever I want to get, I get it out of my own being, I worship that very principle ‘I am’ and demand what I want out of that; because of that all these things are coming."

"I repeatedly tell you that there is nothing save this consciousness, the knowledge ‘I am’ – if you feel like worshipping something, worship that,. I am giving blessings. Blessings mean what? I am giving confidence and courage."

"I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste, eat as you eat. I also feel thirst and hunger and expect my food on time. When starved or sick, my body and mind go weak. All this I perceive quite clearly, but somehow I am not in it. I feel myself as if floating over it, aloof and detached.....as if the body and the mind and all that happens to them were somewhere far out on the horizon. I am like a cinema screen - clear and empty - the pictures pass over it and disappear, leaving it as clear and empty as before. In no way is the screen affected by the pictures, nor are the pictures affected by the screen."

"I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring yourself into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself, by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense 'I am' is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer: it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about yourself anything except 'I am', and that nothing can be pointed at can be yourself, the need for the 'I am' is over - you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. (NM did this practice only in the early part of his 3 years of change) All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to the body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly."