Ramana Maharshi quotes - page 4

That which rises in this body as 'I' is the mind. If one enquires 'In which place in the body does the thought 'I' rise first?', it will be known to be in the heart [spiritual heart is 'two digits to the right from the centre of the chest']. Even if one incessantly thinks 'I', 'I', it will lead to that place (Self)'. (Ramana Maharshi)
The greatest error of a man is to think that he is weak by nature, evil by nature. Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires and thoughts, but not himself. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Under whatever name or form we worship It, It leads us on to knowledge of the nameless, formless Absolute. Yet, to see one's true Self in the Absolute, to subside into It and be one with It, this is the true Knowledge of the Truth. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
"Knowledge itself is 'I.' View quote
Ramana Maharshi
You can only stop the flow of thoughts by refusing to have any interest in it. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Ishta-devata and Guru are aids - very powerful aids on this path. But an aid to be effective requires your effort also. Your effort is a sine qua non. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations. You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality. Whatever you think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc. Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge. (Ramana Maharshi)
The body dies, but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the world is seen merely as a bondage causing imagination. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Concentration of the mind is in a way common to both Knowledge and Yoga. Yoga aims at union of the individual with the universal, the Reality. This Reality cannot be new. It must exist even now, and it does exist. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Even the structure of the atom has been found by the mind. Therefore the mind is subtler than the atom. That which is behind the mind, namely the individual soul, is subtler than the mind. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Consciousness is indeed always with us. Everyone knows 'I am!' No one can deny his own being. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
One must realise his Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Self-reform automatically brings about social reform. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
The reality which is the mere consciousness that remains when ignorance is destroyed along with knowledge of objects, alone is the Self [atma]. In that Brahma-swarupa [real form of Brahman], which is abundant Self-awareness, there is not the least ignorance. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Remembrance also is similarly relative, requiring an object to be remembered and a subject to remember. When there is no duality, who is to remember whom? The Self is ever-present. Each one wants to know the Self. What kind of help does one require to know oneself ? People want to see the Self as something new. But it is eternal and remains the same all along. They desire to see it as a blazing light etc. How can it be so? It is not light, not darkness. It is only as it is. It cannot be defined. (Ramana Maharshi)
There are only two ways to conquer destiny or to be independent of it. One is to enquire whose this destiny is and discover that only the ego is bound by it and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, realizing one's helplessness and saying all the time, 'Not I, but Thou, oh Lord', giving up all sense of 'I' and 'mine' and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
All talk of surrender is like stealing sugar from a sugar image of Ganesha and then offering it to the same Ganesha. You say that you offer up your body and soul and all your possessions to God, but were they yours to offer? At best you can say, 'I wrongly imagined till now that all these, which are Yours, were mine. Now I realise that they are Yours and shall no longer act as though they were mine'. And this knowledge that there is nothing but God or Self, that 'I' and 'mine' do not exist and that only the Self exists is jnana. It is enough that one surrenders oneself. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Awareness is All - the seer and seen, the real and apparent. View quote
Ramana Maharshi
Form and formlessness of God depend on the ego's conception of itself. View quote
Ramana Maharshi