Quotes from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Life is love and love is life.

Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers.

When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love.

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.

Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen, and you need not search for truth; truth will find you.

Knowing that you are nothing is Wisdom, Knowing that you are everything is Love.

It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.

You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what you do not need

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.

Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.

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 decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.

The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.

Whatever happens, happens to you by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive.

To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need nothing. Be what you are--conscious being--and don't stray away from yourself.

It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it.

Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own....Stand still, be quiet.

There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable, for it means the soul has cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment -- when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid, the state may be distressing, but there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: Whatever you come across -- go beyond.

Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and is therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.

When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love. And between these two, my life flows.

All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors . . .

All I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect

I cannot but see you as myself. It is in the very nature of love to see no difference.

Wisdom tells me I am nothing, love tells me I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.