#adi-shankara

Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya, Jivo Brahmaiva Naparah. (Brahman alone is real; the universe is phenomenal; the individual self is non-different from Brahman).

Action cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with it. Knowledge alone destroys ignorance as light destroys deep darkness.

Just as a pot is nothing other than clay, so is the entire universe nothing other than Brahman.

Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam, Govindam Bhaja Mudhamate! (Seek the Divine, seek the Divine, O fool! Grammatical rules will not save you at the hour of death).

I am not the mind, nor the intellect, nor the ego, nor the memory; I am Pure Consciousness, Shiva I am, Shiva I am.

He who has attained Self-knowledge is unaffected by pleasure or pain, just as the sky remains unstained by clouds drifting across it.

Just as the snake perceived in a rope vanishes when the rope is illuminated with a lamp, so the world of fear vanishes when the true Self is known.

The sun illuminates the whole world without being tainted by the world's defects; so the Atman illuminates all experiences without taking on their impurities.

Silence is the highest speech; in the profound stillness of the mind, the absolute truth reveals itself spontaneously.

Neither by yoga, nor by rituals, nor by learning, but by the direct realization of the oneness of Brahman and Atman alone does liberation come.

Control the senses, calm the mind, discriminate between the real and the unreal, and enter the sanctum of the heart.

Wealth is perilous; contemplate constantly that there is no lasting happiness in worldly hoarding.

As water poured into water becomes one with water, so the sage who knows the Self becomes one with the infinite Brahman.

The body is born, grows, decays, and dies; the Atman is unborn, eternal, unchanging, and indestructible.

Abandon the delusion of caste, lineage, and family; look upon all beings with the pure eye of equal vision.

Just as butter is present in milk though unseen, so the Divine Self is present in all things, extracted through the churning of meditation.

Do not be proud of wealth, kin, or youth; time sweeps them away in the blink of an eye. Free yourself from illusion.

When the mind is freed from the impurities of desire and agitation, it reflects the Atman as a clean mirror reflects the sun.

The wise man does not grieve for what is lost, nor yearn for what is unobtained; he rests in the bliss of his own real nature.

As the pot space and the room space are nothing but the infinite sky, so individual consciousness and supreme consciousness are non-different.

The seeker must discriminate between the seer (*drik*) and the seen (*drishya*). The seer is consciousness; all objects seen are inert and transient.

Maya is neither absolutely real nor absolutely unreal; it is inexplicable (*anirvachaniya*), dissolving upon the dawn of true knowledge.

He who sees the one unchanging Consciousness beneath all changing forms alone truly sees.

The mirror does not cling to the face it reflects; the witness consciousness does not cling to the thoughts it illumines.

By constant reflection on the great declaration 'Tat Tvam Asi' (That Thou Art), the illusion of separation dissolves forever.

As iron shaped into a tool remains nothing but iron, so all manifest forms remain nothing but pure Consciousness.

There is neither dissolution nor creation, neither bondage nor seeker, neither candidate for liberation nor liberated soul; this is the ultimate truth.

Do not hate, do not desire, do not worry; establish yourself in the unshakeable peace of your own divine nature.

The enlightened sage lives in the world like a dry leaf blown by the wind of destiny, internally free and unattached.

Knowledge of the Self is not the creation of something new, but the removal of the veil that hid what was always present.