Adi Shankaracharya > Quotes

“When your last breath arrives, Grammar can do nothing.”
― Adi Shankara

“When our false perception is corrected, misery ends also.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual gesture, my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice, my lying down prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself, let whatever activity is mine be some form of worship of you.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, The Saundaryalahari or Flood of Beauty

“When the Great Reality is not known the study of the scriptures is fruitless; when the Great Reality is known the study of the scriptures is also fruitless.”
― Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“You never identify yourself with the shadow cast by your body, or with its reflection, or with the body you see in a dream or in your imagination. Therefore you should not identify yourself with this living body, either.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“Once we become conscious, even dimly, of the Atman, the Reality within us, the world takes on a very different aspect. It is no longer a court of justice but a kind of gymnasium. Good and evil, pain and pleasure, still exist, but they seem more like the ropes and vaulting-horses and parallel bars which can be used to make our bodies strong. Maya is no longer an endlessly revolving wheel of pain and pleasure but a ladder which can be climbed to consciousness of the Reality.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized.”
― Shankara

“Who but the Atman is capable of removing the bonds of ignorance, passion and self-interested action?”
― Shankara

“Having read all the shastras and well grounded in them, they grow conceited that they are all knowing, accomplished and worthy of respect; filled with love and hate they presume themselves respectable; they are only packasses esteemed for carrying heavy loads over long distances in difficult and tortuous ways.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, ADVAITA BODHA DIPIKA

“Sickness is not cured by saying 'Medicine,' but by drinking it;”
― Adi Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“Where renunciation and longing for liberation are weak, tranquillity and the other virtues are a mere appearance, like the mirage in the desert.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“Yeilding to the power of rajas, he identifies himself with the many motions and changes of the mind. Therefore he is swept hither and thither, now rising, now sinking, in the boundless ocean of birth and death, whose waters are full of the poison of sense-objects. This is indeed a miserable fate.”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“Die ersten Schritte sind wertlos, wenn der Weg nicht zu Ende gegangen wird.”
― Shankara

“at peace like a fuelless fire;”
― Adi Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“प्रातः स्मरामि हृदि संस्फुरदात्मतत्त्वं
सच्चित्सुखं परमहंसगतिं तुरीयम् ।
यत्स्वप्नजागरसुषुप्तिमवैति नित्यं
तद्ब्रह्म निष्कलमहं न च भूतसङ्घः ॥१॥

prātaḥ smarāmi hṛdi saṃsphuradātmatattvaṃ
saccitsukhaṃ paramahaṃsagatiṃ turīyam |
yatsvapnajāgarasuṣuptimavaiti nityaṃ
tadbrahma niṣkalamahaṃ na ca bhūtasaṅghaḥ ||1||

~

At dawn, I meditate in my heart on the truth of the radiant inner Self.
This true Self is Pure Being, Awareness, and Joy, the transcendent goal of the great sages.
The eternal witness of the waking, dream and deep sleep states.
I am more than my body, mind and emotions, I am that undivided Spirit.

At dawn, I worship the true Self that is beyond the reach of mind and speech,
By whose grace, speech is even made possible,
This Self is described in the scriptures as “Not this, Not this”.
It is called the God of the Gods, It is unborn, undying, one with the All.

At dawn, I salute the true Self that is beyond all darkness, brilliant as the sun,
The infinite, eternal reality, the highest.
On whom this whole universe of infinite forms is superimposed.
It is like a snake on a rope. The snake seems so real, but when you pick it up, it’s just a rope.
This world is ever-changing, fleeting, but this eternal Light is real and everlasting.

Who recites in the early morning these three sacred Slokas,
which are the ornaments of the three worlds,
obtains the Supreme Abode.

~ Adi Shankara (8th century)”
― Adi Shankaracharya

“The Soul appears to be finite because of ignorance. When ignorance is destroyed the Self which does not admit of any multiplicity truly reveals itself by itself: like the Sun when the clouds pass away.”
― Adi Shankaracharya

“The same objections lie against the doctrine of the world having originated from atoms. For on that doctrine one atom when combining with another must, as it is not made up of parts, enter into the combination with its whole extent, and as thus no increase of bulk takes place we do not get beyond the first atom If, on the other hand, you maintain that the atom enters into the combination with a part only, you offend against the assumption of the atoms having no parts.

Brahma-sûtras, 2e Adhyâya, 1er Pâda, sûtra 29”
― Adi Shankaracarya, Brahma Sutra Bhasya

“By fulfilling his dharma a man marches along the path of progress until he attains the supreme dharma of all beings, namely, the realization of Truth. (p. 28)”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Self-Knowledge: Atmabodha

“Of the plant of birth and death, the seed is Darkness, the sprout is the thought that body is Self, the shoot is rage, the sap is deeds, the body is the stem, the life-breaths are the branches, the tops are the bodily powers, sensuous things are the flowers, sorrow is the fruit, born of varied deeds and manifold; and the Life is the bird that eats the fruit.”
― Adi Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“Who is more self-deluded than he who is careless of his own welfare after gaining a hard-won human birth and manhood, too?”
― Adi Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“fallacies and not the correct explanations. But here follows a refutation of their reasonings independently of the texts. This is the difference.
With regard to this the Sathkhyas”
― Sankaracarya, Brahma Sutra Bhasya

“It is not one; how can there be a second different from it? It has neither absoluteness nor non-absoluteness. It is neither void nor non-void since it is devoid of duality. How can I describe that which is the essence of the entire Vedanta!”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Advaita in Translation 6: Ten Verses on the Self or Dasashloki by Adi Shankara

“As long as man is within the limitations of Maya, the One is seen as many. Ignorance can do no better than to worship Appearance; and Iswara is the ruler of all appearances-the highest idea which the human mind can grasp and the human heart can love. The human mind can never grasp the absolute Reality, it can only infer its presence and worship its projected image. In the process of this worship, the mind becomes purified, the ego-idea thins away like mist, superimposition ceases, Iswara and world-appearance both vanish in the blaze of transcendental consciousness when there is no seer, no seen-nothing but Brahman, the single, all-embracing, timeless Fact.”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination: Viveka-Chudamani

“The unity of existence is the foundation of all ethical codes. Properly understood, it widens the bounds of charity beyond humanity to include the animal world as well. Self-love is the mainspring of man‘s action and the raison d'être of his love for others. We learn from Non-dualistic Vedanta that the true Self of man is the Self of all beings. Therefore, self-love finds its expression and fulfilment in love for all. – Swami Nikhilananda”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Self-Knowledge: Atmabodha

“for he who grasps the unreal is bound; mark this, my companion.”
― Adi Shankaracharya, The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom and other writings of Sankaracharya

“Through ignorance, movements of the waters are attributed to the reflected moon dancing on it. Likewise agency of action, of enjoyment and other limiting adjuncts—which really belong to the mind—are delusively misunderstood as the nature of the Self: Ātman.”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Atma Bodha & Aparoksha Anubhuti: Die Erkenntnis des Selbst & Die direkte Verwirklichung des Selbst

“All human beings, according to the conception of the Vedic seers, form the physical body of the Purusha, or Cosmic Person. The spiritual men form, as it were, his head, the warriors His arms, the merchants and traders His thighs and the labourers His feet. A healthy co-ordination among these four classes of people sustains the strength and the well-being of a society, as a harmony among the four principal physical parts insures the strength and well-being of a body. (p. 30)”
― Adi Shankaracharya, Self-Knowledge: Atmabodha