Wisdom Of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Wise Words To Ponder

A collection of wisdom of Nisargadatta Maharaj. Ponder on these wise words to understand your life goal.

A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.

You do not want to give up either worldly knowledge or so called spiritual knowledge and yet, through these worldly concepts, you want to understand the riddle of your existence, and that is precisely why you are not able to understand.

Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that.

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.

If one totally accepts the knowledge “I am” as oneself with full conviction and faith and firmly believes in the dictum ‘I am that by which I know ‘I am.’ (the firm belief that there is no second).  This knowledge “I am” is the charamrita. Why is it called amrita – the nectar? Because, it is said, by drinking nectar one becomes immortal. Thus, a true devotee, by abiding in the knowledge “I am” transcends the experience of death and attain immortality. But so long as the mind remains unconquered, the experience of death is inevitable.

If you could just give up all other spiritual efforts and disciplines and absorb yourself in relishing the charan-amrita, by abidance in the consciousness, the mind will release you from its clutches. At present, you meekly accept whatever the mind dictates as your own. If the mind goes into silence, where and what are you?

All thoughts, all desires, holy or unholy, come from the self. They all depend upon  the desire to be happy and, therefore, are based on the sense 'I am'. Their quality will depend on one's psyche (Antahkarana) and on the degrees at which the three Gunas prevail. Tamas produces restraint and perversions; Rajas produces energy and passions; and Sattva produces harmony and the urge to make others happy.

When an object is seen as an object, there would have to be a subject other than the object. As the Jnani perceives, there is neither the subject that sees nor the object that is seen; only the 'seeing'. In other words, the Jnani's perception is prior to any interpretation by the sensory faculties. Even if the normal process of objectification has taken place, the Jnani, in his perspective, has taken note of this fact and seen the false as false. The Jnani in his undivided vision, has perceived that physically both the seer and the seen are objects, and that the functioning of consciousness itself merely produces effects in consciousness. Both the producing and the perceiving are done by consciousness, in consciousness. Try to understand this.

In short, the Jnani's seeing is the whole-seeing, or in-seeing, or intuitive seeing, seeing without any objective quality — and that is freedom from bondage. That is what I mean when I say: "I see, but I do not see."

Whenever you put in effort is from the bodily standpoint.

Try to understand yourself as you are, do not add any qualifications.

Do not try to be something, even a spiritual person. You are the manifested. The tree is already there in the seed. Just see it as it is. Do not try to interfere with what you see.

Knowledge is the soul of the whole universe.

If you think yourself as an individual you will surely have death.

As long as you think that the body is you, you will not get true knowledge. This body is a borrowed thing you have to return it. This identity with the body has to go.

It is extremely difficult to get at the root of the cosmic energy, that perfect adept in assuming an infinite variety of forms. The consciousness to be apprehended and the power of concentration are one and the same.

Being polymorphous by nature, it cannot be pinned down to any definite form or name or place, as for instance, the internal experiences of the Dhyana yogin.

In the first instance, the attention of the meditator is silence in excelsis, this is transformed into light, the light assumes the form of space, the space in turn changes into movement. This is transmitted into air, and the air into fire, the fire changes into water, and the water into earth. Lastly, the earth evolves into the world of organic and inorganic things. The water from the rain takes the form of the juices in the grains and vegetables, which essences supply nourishment and energy. This energy takes the form of knowledge, courage, valor, cunning, etc. The limbless process goes on. Neither form, name, nor quality is enduring. Nothing is permanent or determinate.

The nature of consciousness has to be understood. This consciousness can arise only in the physical body, and the physical body is the essence of the five elements. It is because of the association with the physical body that there is suffering.

We will be totally free from the impact of pain and unhappiness, if they understand that pain and unhappiness can only result from the consciousness which has identified itself with the physical body and suffers as an individual.

All forms are made of the same components. So where is the question of the individual?

When the body dies, the life force leaves and mingles with the air, and the consciousness mingles with the universal consciousness. I am essentially nothing identifiable in this consciousness, being only its witness. And, what I am in the absolute sense, it is not possible to convey in any words.

Everything is truth, the Absolute.

When you pursue the spiritual path, the path of self-knowing, all your desires, all your attachments, will just drop away, provided you investigate and hold on to that with which you are trying to understand the self.

When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire will also drop off. This is very important. When this is dropped off, you are in the Absolute – a most essential state.

Your true state, stay put in that. It is ever there, in its pure state, undisturbed.

The source of all happiness is your beingness. Establish yourself there, be there.

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your self-realization.

You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened – at the moment you were born, when you realized yourself as being-knowing- feeling.

There is only one mistake you are making. You take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner.

What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside you take to be in you.

The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be internal.

You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right. You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way.

The ever-awaited first moment was the moment when I was convinced that I was not an individual at all. The idea of my individuality had set me burning so far. The scalding pain was beyond my capacity to endure; but there is not even a trace of it now, I am no more an individual. There is nothing to limit my being now. The ever present anxiety and the gloom have vanished and now I am all beatitude, pure knowledge, pure consciousness.

I am ever free now. I am all bliss, sans spite, sans fear. This beatific conscious form of mine now knows no bounds. I belong to all and everyone is mine. The all are but my own individuations, and these together go to make up my beatific being. There is nothing like good or bad, profit or loss, high or low, mine or  not mine for me. Nobody opposes me and I oppose none for there is none other than myself. Bliss reclines on the bed of bliss. The repose itself has turned into bliss.

The experience of the world is  no more of the world as such, but is the blossoming forth of the selfsame conscious principle, God, and what is it? It is pure, primal knowledge, conscious form, the primordial “I” consciousness that is capable of assuming any form it desires.

Cease being fascinated by the content of your consciousness.

The state of carving for anything blocks all deeper experience.

One is always free. You are both conscious and free to be conscious. Nobody can take this away from you.

Do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name and no shape. In the darkness and silence reality is found.

Whatever you may say will be both true and false. Words do not reach beyond the mind.

Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.

If you go deeper into the matter, you will realize that the source of the body—the male sperm and the female ovum — is in itself the essence of food consumed by the parents; that  the physical form is made of, and fed by, the five elements constituting the food; and also that quite often the body of one creature does become the food for another creature.

Consciousness resides in a healthy body and abandons it when it is decayed and moribund. Reflection of the sun can be seen only in a clear dew drop, not in a muddy one.

One goes through life, year after year, enjoying the usual pleasures and suffering the usual pains, but never once seeing life in its true perspective. And what is the true perspective? It is this: There is no 'me', nor 'you'; there never could be any such entities.  Every man should understand this and have the courage to live his life with this understanding.

Just see the transient as transient, the unreal as unreal, the false as false, and you will realize your true nature.

Everything is enfolded in that seed, just like a whole oak tree is contained in an acorn.

By looking up to others, to so-called “experts,” and following them, or arguing with them, you will not get anywhere. Thus, only you yourself can find out the truth about yourself.

Whatever has sprung from the five elements is sheer ignorance.

There is no question of knowledge dawning in you, because you are that knowledge. It is already there. That is the only condition.

He who is not one with the Brahman and still thinks he is an individual, will always be thinking that something good or bad is going to happen to him, as an entity conditioned by body mind.

Desires that destroy their subjects or objects or do not subside on satisfaction are self contradictory and cannot be fulfilled. Only desires motivated by love, goodwill and compassion are beneficial to both subject and object and can be fully satisfied...the entire universe strives to fulfil a desire born of compassion.

The daily life is a life of action. Whether you like it or not, you must function. Whatever you do for your own sake accumulates and becomes explosive; one day it goes off an plays havoc with you and your own world...therefore work neither for yourself not for others, but for the work’s own sake.

Experience cannot be conveyed through words. It comes with action. A man who is intense in his experience will radiate confidence and courage.

A level of maturity is reached when nothing external is of any value and the heart is ready to relinquish it.

Abandon every attempt. Just be; don't strive, don't struggle, let go every support, hold on to the blind sense of being, brushing off all else. This is enough.

Look at yourself steadily – it is enough. The door that locks you in, is also the door that lets you out. The 'I am' is the door. Stay at it until it opens. As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at it.

I merely say: if you trust my words and put them to test, you will discover for yourself how absolutely true they are. If you ask for proof before you venture, I can only say: I am the proof, I did trust my teacher's words and kept them in my mind and did find that he was right, that I was, am and shall be the Infinite Reality, embracing all transcending all.

What you seek is already within you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realization. My teacher told me that the reality is within me; I looked within and found it there, exactly as my teacher told me.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj On When Is There An Ego?

When is there an ego? The ego is there when you have certain reactions. You take delivery of whatever is observed spontaneously. You cling to it, register it, then only is there an ego. You see some building material lying on the road – you think that you are a carpenter and you start figuring how to use that material; the thought process has started, ego starts. If you are nobody, you will not bother about the building material – you will just observe it and go your way. Once it is out of sight it is out of mind; but when you receive that delivery, you cogitate over it, ego has started. (Source : Prior to Consciousness – Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj ~ Edited by

Jean Dunn)