Ramana Maharshi Quotes

Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.

~ Ramana Maharshi

If the mind falls asleep, awaken it. Then if it starts wandering, make it quiet. If you reach the state where there is neither sleep nor movement of mind, stay still in that, the natural (real) state.

~ Ramana Maharshi

There is nothing like ‘within’ or ‘without.’ Both mean either the same thing or nothing.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still'. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so'. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?

~ Ramana Maharshi

No one succeeds without effort. ... Those who succeed owe their success to their perseverance.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Time and space always change, but there is something which is eternal and changeless. For example, the world and time, past or future, nothing exists for us in sleep. But we exist. Let us try to find out that which is changeless and which always exists.

~ 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.

~ Ramana Maharshi

There is no doubt that breath control is the means for mind control because the mind, like breath, is a part of air; because the nature of mobility is common to both; because the place of origin is the same for both; and because when one of them is controlled, the other gets controlled.

~ Ramana Maharshi

As instruments for knowing the objects, the sense organs are outside, and so they are called outer senses; and the mind is called the inner sense because it is inside. But the distinction between inner and outer is only with reference to the body; in truth, there is neither inner nor outer. The mind's nature is to remain pure like ether.

~ Ramana Maharshi

The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which the cinematographic pictures move. While the picture appears on it, the screen remains invisible. Stop the picture, and the screen will become clear. All thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Who am I? Not the body, because it is decaying; not the mind, because the brain will decay with the body; not the personality, nor the emotions, for these also will vanish with death.

~ Ramana Maharshi

The body dies, but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death.

~ Ramana Maharshi

One must realise his Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.

~ Ramana Maharshi

It is the Higher Power which does everything, and the man is only a tool. If he accepts that position, he is free from troubles; otherwise, he courts them.

~ 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

For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the world is seen merely as a bondage causing imagination.

~ Ramana Maharshi

Devotion complete culminates in knowledge supreme.

~ 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.

~ Ramana Maharshi

No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance.

~ 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.

~ Ramana Maharshi