Self-Knowledge Quotes

“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

“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

“The Mahātman who renounces all his desires, activities, attachments, likes and dislikes and his very contact with the life in this ephemeral world of objects, who is ever at the shrine of the Ᾱtman striving with determination to experience the bliss of his own Self, becomes all knowing, all-pervasive Brahman Itself. Having experienced that which has no beginning or end, he becomes immortal. The dreamer, when he ends his dreams and wakes up, becomes the waker himself; the limited ego on transcending the mind-intellect equipment itself becomes the immortal Brahman.”
― Chinmayananda, Atmabodha

“Language has its own limitations. It can describe only themes that have quality (guṇa) or function (kriyā) or name (nāma) or qualification (viśeṣa) or relationship with others (sambandha). None of these are applicable for the one eternal infinite substratum for everything and hence It must elude language and remain indescribable. This technique, of describing the Infinite by the process of negation, is made use of only in the scriptures. These terms are to be considered as so many arrow marks indicating Truth; in themselves they are not positive definitions of Truth.”
― Chinmayananda, Atmabodha

“When the duality is removed then even the thought, ‘I am Brahman’, is dissolved in the all-consuming knowledge of the Self. There remains but one all-absorbing experience of the non-dual, eternal and infinite supreme Self.”
― Chinmayananda, Atmabodha

“when the ignorance – which causes the veiling of Truth and the agitations of the mind – has gradually weakened and when there is no more eruption of the self-centred egoistic thoughts of passions and sense impulses, we are awakened to the knowledge of the Self. This glory in us is ever pure, eternal and indivisible as previously stated and this is the supreme Existence-Knowledge-Infinite (satyam-jñānam-anantam).”
― Chinmayananda, Atmabodha

“I am the pure Self, uncontaminated by the layers of matter around me, unattached, ever stainless, I am that all-pervading Brahman.”
― Chinmayananda, Atmabodha

“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