Ramana Maharshi Quotes

Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.

If things were not impermanent, life would not be possible.

All illusion comes and goes, but the soul remains unchanged.

We are not victims of aging, sickness and death. These are part of scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.

This identity, this mind, this particular cast of speech, is nearly over.

Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.

Existence is illusory and it is eternal.

That is the ego which rises and sinks periodically. But you exist always. That which lies beyond the ego is consciousness - the Self.

Man, I'm just into Buddhism, and I'm at peace with the fact that me, as this person, probably gonna not be around. Think about a hermit crab, okay? And it's a shell. It's like, they go from one shell to the next. And that's what I am. I'm just a hermit crab changin' shells.

Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.

If there is anything besides the Self there is reason to fear? Who sees the second? First, the ego arises and sees objects as external. If the ego does not rise, the Self alone exists and there is no second.

It is true that we are made of dust. And the world is also made of dust. But the dust has motes rising.

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.

The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies.

We can imagine our bodies being destroyed, our brains ceasing to function, our bones turning to dust, but it is harder - some would say impossible - to imagine the end of our very existence.

I think about death a lot, I really do, because I can't believe I won't exist. It's the ego isn't it? I feel that I should retreat into a better form of Zen Buddhism than this kind of ego-dominated thing. But I don't know, I mean, I want to come back as a tree but I suspect that it's just not going to happen, is it?

Delusion means mortality. And awareness means Buddhahood.

If time is not real, then the dividing line between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.

Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral.

I am Walter, a body, but more important than the body is my spirit.

This body is breaking down, but I am not.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

We are just a little tiny flicker of a much larger flame that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God’s very self.

If I say, "I am a monk." or "I am a Buddhist," these are, in comparison to my nature as a human being, temporary. To be human is basic.

You are permanent, but this life is not.