Bhagavad Gita Quotes on Self-Knowledge

Self-knowledge rises like the sun, and the fog lifts.

Look inward for what you keep searching for outside.

Of all knowledge, self-knowledge is the first.

What happens to you is not who you are.

The lamp you seek is already lit within.

Know the difference between what you have and what you are.

The teacher within is always available.

To want to know yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

The body is a field; you are the one who knows it.

Know the difference between your circumstances and yourself.

When the mind finally rests, you meet yourself.

Look for the one who is using the mind.

Your own nature is the doorway to the highest.

Turn inward, and you may find the light has been waiting.

Know yourself, and you touch the knowing that knows all.

To find the Self in your own heart is to find it in all.

What you seek to know is also what is knowing.

To know the knower is to rest from searching.

Know the knower, not only the known.

Know your body, but remember you are more than your body.

Know your body, your mind, and the awareness behind them.

Return to self-knowledge again and again until it is steady.

What you are seeking is the very light by which you seek.

Do not confuse your temperament with your true self.

Knowing yourself frees you from repeating the same patterns.

Self-knowledge is the end of compulsion.

Some find the self through stillness, some through thinking, some through work.

To see the difference is to rest in your true self.

What you seek is closer than your search.

Know both your lights and your shadows.

Know yourself, quiet your wanting, and you are almost home.

The seed within you has been waiting for your attention.

Know the changing from the unchanging in yourself.

What you seek as treasure is already inside you as seed.

The source can be known from within, not studied from without.

Self-knowledge is the only door to the Self.

Knowledge of the Self is the knowledge that makes every other knowledge useful.

Curiosity about the self is the oldest curiosity.

Self-knowledge begins with seeing your pattern of clinging.

What you seek is closer than you think; it matures within.

Self-knowledge shortens every journey.

See yourself clearly, and the search can end.

Know the self, know the world, know your action.

Know your nature, and you know where to begin.

The supreme goal is not far; it is the ground of who you are.

Know your tendencies; they are the sails of your boat.

Begin with the Self, and the middle and end will make sense.

Learn the map of the self: body, senses, mind, and the knower.

Learn the basics of yourself before you aim at the heights.

Let your inner supporter be your first teacher.

Know the beyond and you are at home in the within.

The deepest doer knows itself as a witness.

Understanding who you are removes the need to chase who you are not.

The deepest well is inside you.

Be one with what you most deeply are.

Ask about the self, the action, the world, and the divine.

Your inner nature is more than your habits.

Your experience of the sacred is yours alone to describe.

Honest self-knowledge makes the journey lighter.

Knowledge of the self turns responsibility into care.

When pleasure and pain both loosen their hold, what remains is you.

Who is acting in you, and who is watching?

The self sees the Self when the mind stops running.

Rise from the lower self to the living self.

Self-knowledge tastes unpleasant before it tastes like freedom.

Self-inquiry begins with: what moves me?

Learning who you are is the brightest education.

Who are you beyond your body and your thoughts?

What stays the same in you whatever mood you are in?

Self-knowledge begins by sorting your own habits of mind.

How much of what you say about the self have you actually lived?

Know your nature before you choose your method.

Know yourself before you choose your work.

The self is the best school.

What in you remains when everything else changes?

What in you knows itself without needing a mirror?

What have you learned about yourself recently?

Understanding your tools is part of understanding yourself.

You are a spark of something eternal.

Find your joy inside, your rest inside, your light inside.

You are more than your elements.

Liberation is seeing clearly who you are.

The child, the youth and the elder are one person.

Beyond the body and mind is the life that sustains them.

Seek the part of you that time cannot touch.

Learning about the world is good; learning about yourself is better.

Look into your heart; the lamp is already lit.

Many roads, one self.

With the eye of wisdom, you see what is you and what only happens to you.

Learning to tell the field from the knower is the road to freedom.

The deepest light needs no lamp.

Knowledge is an eye that opens from within.

What is truly you has no first day and no last.

Contentment begins where wanting meets what you already are.

Build a home in your own heart.

The nearer you are to yourself, the nearer you are to peace.

When the mind rests in itself, wanting loses its hold.

Practice leads the mind home.

Do not mistake a mood for your identity.

Be the best version of what you already are.

The knower and the known are not two.

The one who knows the body is not the body.

Your moods and qualities are born of nature, not of your essence.

Choose the path that suits your temperament.

You are more than the three weaves of nature.

Look within the heart; the answer already lives there.

Above the senses stands the mind; above the mind, the intellect; above the intellect, the Self.

Give yourself time; wisdom ripens within.

A mind at home in itself is never homeless.

Inner light needs no outer switch.

The restless mind finds its resting place within.

Know your ingredients before you try to master yourself.

Understanding yourself fully ends the fear of endings.

Liberation is to know your own depth.

Where in this body does the sacred dwell?

The body is a temple; ask who is the deity.

Greatness is cultivating the divine qualities already in you.

The divine in you grows by attention.

Respect for the source is respect for yourself.

Ask the big questions: what is nature, what is the self, what is knowing?

Knowing the field and the knower is true knowledge.

Constancy in the search for the Self is its own reward.

No single route to the self is the only one.

A drop of the ocean carries the ocean’s nature.

You are the one who sees, not merely the seeing.

Those who keep striving find the Self within.

A person is made of what they believe in.

Age changes the body, not the one who lives in it.

What you truly are neither wounds nor is wounded.

Unburnt, undrowned, unmoved: that is your deepest nature.

The self cannot be seen, imagined or changed; it can only be known.

The self is a well that never needs outside rain.

Clear the cloud, and your own knowing returns.

Craving quiets when you stop searching elsewhere.

Satisfaction found in the Self needs no sequel.

You are made of earth, water, fire, air, space and mind.

Let a sunrise remind you what is shining within.

Every action looks different once you know who is acting.

The world is made of passing things; learn who is passing through.

Only the infinite fully knows itself.

Honour the mystery of what can only be known from inside.

Not everything real can be named; some things can only be realised.

Your life is made of elements, senses, mind and ego.

Dwell in the Self, and the world loses its pull.

What is imperishable cannot be lost, only forgotten.

The self you are is older than the body you wear.

A body is a house, not the self.

Faith is born from what you are as well as what you are told.

You belong to something that was never absent and will not vanish.

The self is the thread; childhood and old age are beads.

Nothing outside can disturb a mind that rests in itself.

Mistaking the body for the self is the root of many fears.

Ancient, unborn, ever-present: that is what you are.

Eternal and all-pervading: you are not small.

Peace is a fullness that nothing needs to add to.

The body is a city with nine gates; you are its calm resident.

The Self reveals itself when ignorance steps aside.

Liberation feels like being at home in yourself.

Union begins with a mind that is satisfied within.

Know the divine in the world, in the sacred, and in yourself.

The ancient guide within knows more than your mind does.

The teacher outside points to the teacher inside.

Remember who is watching when the senses are busy.

Turn your daily labour into a workshop for the self.

A change of form is not a loss of self.

Who in you has watched every age arrive?

Your essence is untouched by what happens to your form.

Fear thins when you remember what in you never changes.

Be rooted in yourself, and the world's swings pass over you.

Many lifetimes have shaped who you are today.

To harm another is to forget who you are.

What you have been seeking was lit all along.

The aggregate of body and mind is a changing community.

Turn away from craving, and you turn toward yourself.

Let scripture lead you to the one who dwells inside you.

All learning ends in knowing the one who dwells within.

What shakes you reveals what you rest upon.

Who were you before this fear, and who will you be after it?

Eternity is not later; it is the nature of what you are now.

Steady, ancient, everywhere: the self is its own foundation.

Limited memory, limitless soul.

Begin within; the outer search will make more sense.

Knowledge, the known, and the knower: three parts of one understanding.

What would change if you knew nothing could touch your core?

Your years are guests; your true self is the home.

Seeing through confusion ends the hunger for more advice.

What are you wide awake to that others overlook?

A secret is only secret to those who have not yet looked within.

Self-awareness starts with classifying your own tendencies.

Let meditation be the place where every borrowed belief is checked.

To know the tree, trace it upward to its source.

What are you ready to see more clearly about yourself?

What within you is not perishable?

Which route to the self fits you best right now?

What is your inner light made of today?

What does the part of you that never began remember?