Absolute perfection is here and now, not in some future, near or far. The secret is in action - here and now. It is your behavior that blinds you to yourself. Disregard whatever you think yourself to be and act as if you were absolutely perfect-whatever your idea of perfection may be. All you need is courage.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

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.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Love is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the center of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Question: You seem to advise me to be self-centered to the point of egoism. Must I not yield even to my interest in other people? Maharaj: Your interest in others is egoistic, self-concerned, self-oriented. You are not interested in others as persons, but only as far as they enrich, or enable your own image of yourself. And the ultimate in selfishness is to care only for the protection, preservation and multiplication of one's own body. By body Mean all that is related to your name and shape--- your family, tribe, country, race, etc. To be attached to one's name and shape is selfishness. A man who knows that he is neither body nor mind cannot be selfish, for he has nothing to be selfish for. Or, you may say, he is equally 'selfish' on behalf of everybody he meets; everybody's welfare is his own. The feeling 'I am the world, the world is myself' becomes quite natural; once it is established, there is just no way of being selfish. To be selfish means to covet, to acquire, accumulate on behalf of the part against the whole. I Am ThatNisargadatta Sahara

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

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.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

The man who carries a parcel is anxious not to lose it -- he is parcel-conscious. The man who cherishes the feeling 'I am' is self-conscious. The Jean holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is the very heart of awareness. We call him disembark clothed in space, the Naked One, beyond all appearance. There is no name and shape under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

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.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Truth is not a reward for good behavior, 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.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

— Nisargadatta Maharaj