• The Absolute cannot be understood. Understanding goes only up to the 'I am' sense. You are not whatever you understand, in non-understanding you understand yourself.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: Pradeep Apte, From my Note-book on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Scribd document, 21 Seiten [12. January 2015]

• Past and future are in the mind only – I am now.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: AZ Quote

• When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom.
  When I see I am everything, that is love.
  And between these two, my life flows.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

• The expected rarely happens; the unexpected is bound to happen. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu
  sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: Nisargadatta Maharaj. Words, presented by the publication Inner Quest

• You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace. Don't you see that it is
  your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and
  pleasure, neither asking nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present.
  Soon you will realize that peace and happiness are your very nature and it is only seeking them through some
  particular channels that disturb. Avoid the disturbance that is all. To seek there is no need; you would not seek
  what you already have. You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian
  Hindu sage of the Advaita Vedanta tradition, cited in: Instructions to a spiritual inquirer from Sri Nisargadatta, S. 240, undated

• The mind craves for formulations and definitions, always eager to squeeze reality into a verbal shape.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: 35 Sri Nisargadatta
  Maharaj Quotes, presented by the blogspot success consciousness, Remez Sasson, undated

• Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it
  busy all the time. Stop it – and just be. If you give it a rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength.
  Constant thinking makes it decay. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradi-
  tion, cited in: 35 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes, presented by the blogspot success consciousness, Remez Sasson, undated

• You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you
  find them interesting. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in:
  35 Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes, presented by the blogspot success consciousness, Remez Sasson, undated

• This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: AZ Quote

• In mundane, worldly matters you have recourse to spirituality to understand how unreal this is. Once you understand the object of spirituality, you also understand that spirituality is unreal, and in the process you dismiss all this world.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: This is all a joke ~ Nisargadatta, presented by the blogspot Prior To Consciousness, 14. September 2020

• When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then
  the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: Quotefancy

• For what has a beginning and an end has no middle. It is hollow. It has only name and shape given to it by the mind, but it has neither substance nor essence. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: 97. The Seed of everything is this Consciousness., presented by the Apple podcast Urban Guru Cafe, undated

• Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go everything. Giving up is a first step, but real giving-up is the insight that there's nothing to be given up, since nothing is your property. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: Robert Powell, The wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Globe Press Books, 1. April 1992

• The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to
  the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him,
  and is never tired of reminding you. But the self-appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his dis-
  ciples. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Part 83, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992; cited in: nonduality.com

• Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you do not want to suffer don't go to sleep.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: AZ Quote

• In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife; you are the love between the two.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, cited in: AZ Quote

• What we seek is what we already are. Enlightenment needs no effort, in fact any effort is only a hindrance
  to it. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, source unknown

• Your real being is love itself and your many loves are its reflections according to the situation at the moment.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisarga-
  datta, S. 206, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992

• If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don't complain that you have made no progress.
  All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that a teaching has not been taken to heart and trans-
  lated into action fully. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That.
  Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992; cited in: Yoga Journal, S. 51, March 1982

• The world is not objective and the sorrow of it is not avoidable. Compassion is but another word for the refusal to
  suffer for imaginary reasons.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the Advaita Vedanta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, "Body and Mind are Symptoms of Ignorance", Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992

• The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. The real you is beyond birth and death. The body will survive
  as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage
  of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992

• When you deceive yourself that you work for the good of all, it makes matters worse, for you should not be guided
  by your own ideas of what is good for others. A man who claims to know what is good for others is dangerous.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992, cited in: Nisargadatta Maharaj Quotes, presented by the website One Journey

• Your own self is your ultimate teacher. The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, S. 51, 2005

• Only the changeable can be thought of and talked about. The unchangeable can only be realised in silence. Once realised, it will deeply affect the changeable, itself remaining unaffected. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, 85. 'I am': "The Foundation of all Experience", Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, 2005

• Truth can be experienced, but it is not mere experience. I know it and I can convey it, but only if you are open to it. To be open means to want nothing else. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, 85. 'I am': "The Foundation of all Experience", 74. "Truth is Here and Now", Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, 2005

• Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, 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. Just stop running away by running after. Stand still, be quiet.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, 74. "Truth is Here and Now", Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, 2005; cited in: Goodreads Quotable Quote

• Noble friendship (satsang) is the supreme remedy for all ills, physical and mental.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 28, Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, 2005

• To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor non-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, 764, Acorn Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1973, June 1990, 2005

• Most of our karma is collective. We suffer for the sins of others, as others suffer for ours. Humanity is one. Igno-
  rance of this fact does not change it. We would have been much happier people ourselves, but for our indifference
  to the suffering of others we cause our own suffering.
  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the Advaita advaita vedānta tradition, Miguel-Angel Carrasco, editor,
  I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 465, Chetana, Bombay, 1992

• Why push the Truth down unwilling throats? It cannot be done, anyhow. Without a receiver what can the giver do? Givers there are many; where are the takers? Sharing is a two-way street. Two are needed in sharing. Who is willing to take what I am willing to give? What can I do beyond showing you the way to improve your vision?
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• The very facts of repetition, of struggling on and on and on and of endurance and perseverance, in spite of boredom and despair and complete lack of conviction are really crucial. They are not important in themselves, but the sincerity behind them is all-important. There must be a push from within and pull from without.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience
  peace and freedom from fear.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• The only help worth giving is freeing from the need for further help. Repeated help is no help at all. Do not talk of helping another, unless you can put him beyond all need of help.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 34, Chetana Publishing, Bombay, India, 1973, 1992

• NM: Even to say that you are not the body is not quite true. In a way you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and
  much more. Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten?
  You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it
  comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be
  verbalized but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am' is always with
  you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it – body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these
  self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not. […] Memory crea-
  tes the illusion of continuity. In reality each experience has its own experiencer and the sense of identity is due to
  the common factor at the root of all experiencer-experience relations. Identity and continuity are not the same. Just
  as each flower has its own color, but all colors are caused by the same light, so do many experiences appear in the
  undivided and indivisible awareness, each separate in memory, identical in essence. This essence is the root, the foundation, the timeless and spaceless 'possibility' of all experience.
  Question: How do I get at it?
  NM: You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you, if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the
  unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or
  that and the realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love
  which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 1 ending, S. 9-10, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Questioner: I am asking you a question and you are answering. Are you conscious of the question and the answer?
  Maharaj: in reality I am neither hearing nor answering. In the world of events the question happens and the answer hap-
  pens. Nothing happens to me. Everything just happens.
  Question: And you are the witness?
  Maharaj: What does witness mean? Mere knowledge. It rained and now the rain is over. I did not get wet. I know it rai-
  ned, but I am not affected. I just witnessed the rain.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 35, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• When the mind is still, absolutely silent, the waking state is no more.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 41, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Question: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?
  NM: Where else?
  Question: What makes you say so?
  NM: No desire ever arises in my mind.
  Question: Are you then unconscious?
  NM: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear enters my mind, there is perfect silence.
  Question: Who knows the silence?
  NM: Silence knows itself. It is the silence of the silent mind, when passions and desires are silenced.
  Question: Do you experience desires occasionally?
  NM: Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you see one. A desire is just a thing among
  many. I feel no urge to satisfy it, no action needs be taken on it.
  Freedom from desire means this: the compulsion to satisfy is absent.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 67, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Question: If I start the practice of dismissing everything as a dream, where will it lead me?
  NM: Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go any-
  where? Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream
  is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it,
  and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 117, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• A venerable Yogi, a master in the art of longevity, himself over 1000 years old, comes to teach me his art.
  I fully respect and sincerely admire his achievements, yet all I can tell him is: of what use is longevity to me?
  I am beyond time.
  However long a life may be, it is but a moment and a dream.
  In the same way I am beyond all attributes.
  They appear and disappear in my light, but cannot describe me.
  The universe is all names and forms, based on qualities and their differences, while I am beyond.
  The world is there because I am, but I am not the world.

• NM: You are all drenched for it is raining hard. In my world it is always fine Weather. There is no night or day, no
  heat or cold. No worries beset me there, nor regrets. My mind is free of thoughts, for there are no desires to slave for.
  Question: Are there two worlds?
  NM: Your world is transient, changeful. My world is perfect, changeless. You can tell me what you like about
  your world – I shall listen carefully, even with interest, yet not for a moment shall I forget that your world is not,
  that you are dreaming.
  Question: What distinguishes your world from mine?
  NM: My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified. You can say nothing about it. I am my world. My
  world is myself. It is complete and perfect. Every impression is erased, every experience – rejected. I need nothing,
  not even myself, for myself I cannot lose.
  Question: Not even God?
  NM: All these ideas and distinctions exist in your world; in mine there is nothing of the kind. My world is single and
  very simple.
  Question: Nothing happens there?
  NM: Whatever happens in your world, only there it has validity and evokes response. In my world nothing happens.
  Question: The very fact of your experiencing your own world implies duality inherent in all experience.
  NM: Verbally – yes. But your words do not reach me. Mine is a non-verbal world. In your world the unspoken has
  no existence. In mine – the words and their contents have no being. In your world nothing stays, in mine – nothing
  changes.
  My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.
  Question: Yet we are talking.
  NM: The talk is in your world. In mine – there is eternal silence. My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing. You cannot know my world until you are there.
  Question: It seems as if you alone are in your world.
  NM: How can you say alone or not alone, when words do not apply? Of course, I am alone for I am all.
  Question: Are you ever coming into our world?
  NM: What is coming and going to me? These again are words. I am. Whence am I to come from and where to go?
  Question: Of what use is your world to me?
  NM: You should consider more closely your own world, examine it critically and, suddenly, one day you will find
  yourself in mine.
  Question: What do we gain by it?
  NM: You gain nothing. You leave behind what is not your own and find what you have never lost – your own being.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 23, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Questioner: I have definite spiritual ambitions. Must I not work for their fulfillment?
  No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of the ‘I Am’. If you want to make real progress you must give
  up all idea of personal attainment. In the lust for an everlasting personal bliss the mind is a cheat. The more pious it
  seems, the worse the betrayal.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 63, S. 286, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow
  any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my
  attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it
  was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 75, S. 375, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• The inner guru is not committed to non-violence. He can be quite violent at times, to the point of destroying the ob-
  tuse or perverted personality. Suffering and death, as life and happiness, are his tools of work. It is only in duality that non-violence becomes the unifying law.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 75, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Question: If the real is beyond words and mind, why do we talk so much about it?
  NM: For the joy of it, of course. The real is bliss supreme. Even to talk of it is happiness.
  Question: I hear you talking of the unshakable and blissful. What is in your mind when you use these words?
  NM: There is nothing in my mind. As you hear the words, so do I hear them. The power that makes everything
  happens makes them also happen.
  Question: But you are speaking, not me.
  NM: That is how it appears to you. As I see it, two body-minds exchange symbolic noises. In reality nothing
  happens.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 419, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• One does not become a disciple by conversion, or by accident. There is usually an ancient link, maintained through many lives and flowering as love and trust, without which there is no discipleship. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 460, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• Questioner: I understand one must give up one's family and possessions to become a disciple.
  Maharaj: It varies with the Guru. Some expect their mature disciples to become ascetics and recluses; some encou-
  rage family life and duties. Most of them consider a model family life more difficult than renunciation, suitable for a personality more mature and better balanced. At the early stages the discipline of monastic life may be advisable. Therefore, in the Hindu culture students up to the age of 25 are expected to live like monks – in poverty, chastity
  and obedience – to give them a chance to build a character able to meet the hardships and temptations of
  married life.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, S. 461, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• [E]njoyment is a state of mind – it comes and goes. Its very impermanence makes it perceivable. You cannot be conscious of what does not change. All consciousness is consciousness of change. But the very perception of
  change – does it not necessitate a changeless background?
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta, chapter 99, S. 378, Acorn Press, 1973, June 1990

• There is nothing to practice. To know yourself, be yourself. To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this
  or that. Just be. Let your true nature emerge. Don't disturb your mind with seeking. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) Indian Hindu sage of the advaita vedānta tradition, adapted from I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargadatta,
  Maurice Frydman, 1973

Prior To Consciousness

• Sitting in meditation helps the consciousness to blossom. It causes deeper understanding and spontaneous change in behavior. These changes are brought about in the consciousness itself, not in the pseudo-personality. Forced changes are at the level of the mind. Mental and intellectual changes are totally unnatural and different from the
  ones that take place in the birth principle. These take place naturally, automatically, by themselves, due to meditation.
  Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Dunn, Prior to Consciousness, S. 86, Acorn Press,
  2nd edition May 1990

• Most of the people see the tree of knowledge and admire it, but what is to be understood is its source – the seed,
  the latent force from which it sprouts. Many people talk about it but only intellectually; I talk about it from direct
  knowledge. Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Dunn, Prior to Consciousness, S. 86, Acorn Press,
  2nd edition May 1990

• A small speck of consciousness, which is like a seed, has all the worlds contained in it. The physical frame is neces-
  sary for it to manifest itself. Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Dunn, Prior to Consciousness, S. 86, Acorn Press, 2nd edition
  May 1990

• All the ambitions, hopes and desires are connected with an identity, and so long as there is an identity, no truth can
  be apperceived. Nisargadatta Maharaj, Jean Dunn, Prior to Consciousness, S. 86, Acorn Press, 2nd edition May 1990

Dialogues

• Nisargadatta: To go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. You cannot leave a mess behind and go beyond. He who seeks Liberation must examine his mind by his own efforts, and once the mind is purified by such introspection Liberation is obtained and appears obvious and natural.
  Question: "Then why are sadhanas prescribed?"
  Nisargadatta: Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.
  Question: How can the absolute be the result of a process?
  Nisargadatta: You are right, the relative cannot result in the absolute. But the relative can block the absolute, just as
  the non-churning of the cream may prevent butter from separating. It is the real that creates the urge; the inner
  prompts the outer and the outer responds in interest and effort. - You seem to want instant insight, forgetting that the
  instant is always preceded by a long preparation. The fruit falls suddenly, but the ripening takes time.
  The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most
  inveterate beliefs. Nisargadatta Maharaj, Robert Powell, editor, The Ultimate Medicine. Dialogues with a Realized Master, North Atlantic Books, 1st edition 28. September 2006

• How to find the right Guru?
  Questioner: How will I find a Guru whom I can trust?
  wpe:Nisargadatta_Maharaj'Maharaj: Your own heart will tell you.
  Questioner: Must I not examine the teacher before I put myself entirely into his hands?
  Maharaj: By all means examine! But what can you find out? Only as he appears to you on your own level.
  Questioner: I shall watch whether he is consistent, whether there is harmony between his life and his teaching.
  Maharaj: You may find plenty of disharmony – so what? It proves nothing. Only motives matter. How will you know his motives?
  Questioner: I should at least expect him to be a man of self-control who lives a righteous life.
  Maharaj: Such you will find many – and of no use to you. A Guru can show the way back home, to your real self. What has this to do with the character, or temperament of the person he appears to be? Does he not clearly tell you that he
  is not the person? The only way you can judge is by the change in yourself when you are in his company. If you feel more at peace and happy, if you understand yourself with more than usual clarity and depth, it means you have met
  the right man (or woman). Nisargadatta Maharaj, Robert Powell, editor, The Ultimate Medicine. Dialogues with a Realized
  Master, North Atlantic Books, 1st edition 28. September 2006

The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness)

• When I met my Guru, he told me: You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense
  'I am', find your real Self. I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon!
  
  My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my
  best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did
  was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the
  mind I saw myself as I am – unbound.
  
  I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used
  to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing
  love became my normal state. In it all disappeared – myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only
  peace remained and unfathomable silence. Nisargadatta Maharaj, short text The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness),
  undated