Nisargadatta Maharaj on Life

"Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,Love is knowing I am everything,and between the two my life moves."

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

"Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your vision."

"Whenever a form is infused with life , consciousness appears by reflection of awareness in matter."

"The gnani is afraid of nothing. But he pities the man who is afraid. After all, to be born, to live and to die is natural. To be afraid is not. ."

"Those who make plans will be born to carry them out. Those who make no plans need not be born."

"Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands. ."

"In reality there is only consciousness. All life is conscious, all consciousness alive."

"Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment ."

"The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness."

"Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted. Who has not daring will not accept the real even when offered. Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle."

"Bodies are born and bodies die, but what is it to me? Bodies come and bodies go in consciousness and consciousness itself has its roots in me. I am life and mine are mind and body."

"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."

"There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body, nor even in the idea ‘I am the body.’ But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake. In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my consciousness. ."

"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."

"Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life, given to 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."

"In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in the “I am,” which shines in every living being. ."

"And what is death? It is the change in the living process of a particular body. Integration ends and disintegration sets in. In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after death."

"I live on courage. Courage is my essence, which is love of life. I am free of memories and anticipations, unconcerned with what I am and what I am not. I have the courage to be as nothing and to see the world as it is: nothing. It sounds simply, just try it!"

"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."

"All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the sense of unity be frustrated? Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise, sex is blind. Once the true nature of love and sex is understood there will be no conflict or confusion."

"if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen! Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life – this is the quickest way to a change of your world."

"Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated in you and by you. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being. You will find that in that light there is love and infinite energy."

"My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain. for the sake of pleasure you are committing many sins. And the fruits of sin are suffering and death."

"To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor not-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the mind-body is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living."

"as long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace – immersed in the deep silence of reality."

"If you look into living process closely, you will find cruelty everywhere, for life feeds on life. This is a fact, but it does not make you feel guilty of being alive. From the animal point of view, being killed is not the worst form of dying; surely preferable to sickness and senile decay. The cruelty lies in the motive, not in the fact. Killing hurts the killer, not the killed."

"Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them, and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you. By the same power that brought you so far, that prompted your heart to desire truth and your mind to seek it. It is the same power that keeps you alive. You may call it Life or the Supreme."

"The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thralldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow. What is wrong with a life which is free from problems? Personality is merely a reflection of the real. Once you realize that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown."

"Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love. The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless."