For the past five years, I’ve collected spiritual teachings that fall into the “all you need” category. In the sense: If you dedicate all your being to the instruction, that’s all you need to do.
Perhaps find your favorite, print or memorize it, and work with it daily.
They are in no particular order (except my favorite is at the end).
Random note: I don’t know why, but I’ve always had an objection to the word “spiritual.” So I looked it up, and it means nonmaterial. I no longer have an objection to that word.
“Keep your mind still. That is enough. You will get spiritual help sitting in this hall if you keep yourself still. The aim of all practices is to give up all practices. When the mind becomes still, the power of the Self will be experienced. The waves of the Self are pervading everywhere. If the mind is in peace, one begins to experience them.” -Ramana Maharshi
Ramana Maharshi
“I can perceive and know my body, sense-organs and mind. Therefore I am evidently the subject, distinct and separate from all of them.” -Sri Atmananda
“If you just try to keep quiet, all will come—the work, the strength for work, the right motive. Must you know everything beforehand? Don’t be anxious about your future—be quiet now and all will fall in place.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All you need is to be aware of being, not as a verbal statement, but as ever present fact. The real is, behind and beyond words, incommunicable, directly experienced, explosive in its effect on the mind. It is easily had when nothing else is wanted.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Self Realization is not however a state which is foreign to you, which is far from you, and which has to be reached by you. You are always in that state. You forget it, and identify yourself with the mind and its creation. To cease to identify yourself with the mind is all that is required.” -Ramana Maharshi
There are levels in consciousness, but not in awareness. It is of one block, homogeneous. Its reflection in the mind is love and understanding. There are levels of clarity in understanding and intensity in love, but not in their source. The source is simple and single, but its gifts are infinite. Only do not take the gifts for the source. Realize yourself as the source and not as the river; that is all. -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“A quiet mind is all you need. To know that you are a prisoner of your mind, that you live in an imaginary world of your own creation is the dawn of wisdom. To want nothing of it, to be ready to abandon it entirely, is earnestness.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“If you can only rid yourselves of conceptual thought, you will have accomplished everything. … But whether you transcend conceptual thought by a longer or a shorter way, the result is a state of BEING.” -Huang Po
This may or may not be an accurate rendition of zen master Huang Po.
“That which is, is peace. All that we need do is keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it. We are not going to create peace anew. There is space in a hall, for instance. We fill up the place with various articles. If we want space, all that we need do is to remove all those articles, and we get space. Similarly if we remove all the rubbish, all the thoughts, from our minds, the peace will become manifest. That which is obstructing the peace has to be removed. Peace is the only reality.” -Ramana Maharshi
“All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Do this one thing thoroughly. That is all.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Stay open and quiet, that is all. What you seek is so near you, that there is no place for a way” [to it]. -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All that one has to do is find out one’s source and take up headquarters there.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“You do not need help, only advice. What you seek is already in you. Take my own case. I did nothing for my realization. My teacher told me that the reality is within me; I looked within and found it there, exactly as my teacher told me. To see reality is as simple as to see one’s face in a mirror. Only the mirror must be clear and true. A quiet mind, undistorted by desires and fears, free from ideas and opinions, clear on all the levels, is needed to reflect the reality. Be clear and quiet—alert and detached, all else will happen by itself.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Q: “How am I to reach perfection?”
“Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All you have to do is to abandon all memories and expectations. Just keep yourself ready in utter nakedness and nothingness.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Abandon all conceptualization and stay silent and attentive. Be earnest about it and all will be well with you.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind. That is enough.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through understanding. Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap. The mind misunderstands, misunderstanding is its very nature. Right understanding is the only remedy… Trace your misunderstandings [beliefs] and abandon them, that is all. There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost. Relax and watch the ‘I am’. Reality is just behind it. Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“All you need is to listen, remember, ponder. It is like taking food. All you can do is to bite off, chew and swallow. All else is unconscious and automatic. Listen, remember and understand — the mind is both the actor and the stage. All is of the mind and you are not the mind. The mind is born and reborn, not you.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
“When you sit quiet and watch yourself, all kinds of things may come to the surface. Do nothing about them, don’t react to them; as they have come so will they go, by themselves. All that matters is mindfulness, total awareness of oneself or rather, of one’s mind.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
Nisargadatta Marahaj
Question: “If one is determined to reach enlightenment, what is the most essential method one can practice?”
Answer: “The most essential method, which includes all other methods, is beholding the mind.” -Bodhidharma
“All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self. When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the creative fire within. The ultimate value of the body is that it serves to discover the cosmic body, which is the universe in its entirety. As you realize yourself in manifestation, you keep on discovering that you are ever more than what you have imagined.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
My favorite:
“A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly once your mind is quiet. As the sun upon rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part.”
Q. “You mean to say that the greatest work is done my not working?”
“Exactly.” -Nisargadatta Maharaj
When I read that one in August 2015, I knew that was what I’d been unkowningly waiting to hear, my entire life.