Ramana Maharshi Quotes

The fool is his own enemy. Seeking wealth, he destroys himself. Seek rather the other shore.

There is, inside all our heads, the ego’s rabid attack dog. It is purely vicious toward others and toward ourselves as well. Learning to control that dog, and ultimately to end its life, is the process and purpose of enlightened relationships.

Our ego never wants to die and it will do anything to prolong its life. But the truth is, we are both spirit and ego and you have to have a balance between the two. Your spirit never dies, but the ego is all about beginnings and ends.

Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will.

God delights in our temptations and yet hates them. He delights in them when they drive us to prayer; he hates them when they drive us to despair.

This rascal ego must be obliterated.

The ego will always be able to find ways to keep the aspirant busy in self-improvement, thus binding him or her to the fact that the self is still there behind all the improvements. For why should the ego kill itself?

Meditation is the art of dying. Then your ego will be shocked. And it is also truer to cal I it the art of dying, because you r ego is not going to grow, your ego is going to die in meditation.

When someone becomes transparent, then something shines through that person that has nothing to do with the person or any of his or her personal history. What is required is becoming so transparent that the self or ego dissolves.

In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all of us must die before we die, and then we will not be afraid of dying. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever you are not in control.

All troubles come to an end when the ego dies

Love and ego cannot go together. Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all. They cannot keep company. They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be. Darkness can only be if light is not there. If love is not there the ego can be; if love is there the ego cannot be. And vice versa, if ego is dropped, love arrives from all the directions. It simply starts pouring in you from everywhere.

The ego promotes turmoil because it wants to substantiate your separateness from everyone, including God. It will push you in the direction of judgment and comparison, and cause you to insist on being right and best. You know your highest self by listening to the voice that only wants you to be at peace.

A Course in Miracles tells us that although 'we think that without the ego, all would be chaos, the opposite is true. Without the ego, all would be love.'

Suffering is essential for the elimination of the ego, just as it was necessary for you to scrub and scrub in order to wash the stain from my coat.

Happiness is threatening and misery is safe - safe for the ego. Ego can exist only in misery and through misery. Ego is an island surrounded by hell; happiness is threatening to the ego, to the very existence of the ego. Happiness rises like a sun and the ego disappears, evaporates like a dewdrop on the grass leaf.

The illuminated life can happen now, in the moments left. Die to your ego, and become a True Human Being.

Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.

My toughest enemy is in the mirror - would you look at that.

We must be what we are, or we become our enemies.

The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously.

When your ego is no more, only then will you know who you are.

The more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, and despair. Gratitude will act as an elixir that will gradually dissolve the hard shell of your ego-your need to posses and control-and transform you into a generous being. The sense of gratitude produces true spiritual alchemy, makes us magnanimous-lar ge souled.