Adi Shankara Quotes

Adi Shankara Quote: Atman is an ever-present reality.

When your last breath arrives, Grammar can do nothing.

Adi Shankara

When our false perception is corrected, misery ends also.

Adi Shankara

Curb your senses and your mind and see the Lord within your heart.

Adi Shankara

The treasure I have found cannot be described in words, the mind cannot conceive of it.

Adi Shankara

Brahman is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.

Adi Shankara

Atman is an ever-present Reality. Yet, because of ignorance it is not realised. On the destruction of ignorance Atman is realised.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Space seems broken and diverse because of the many forms in it. Remove the forms and pure space remains. So, too with the Omnipresent Self.

Adi Shankara

Like bubbles in the water, the worlds rise, exist and dissolve in the Supreme Self, which is the material cause and the prop of everything.

Adi Shankara

Where renunciation and longing for liberation are weak, tranquillity and the other virtues are a mere appearance, like the mirage in the desert.

Adi Shankara


Adi Shankara Quote: A lighted-lamp does not need another lamp to illumine its light. So too, Atman which....

A lighted-lamp does not need another lamp to illumine its light. So too, Atman which is Knowledge itself needs no other knowledge to know it.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

All objects are pervaded by Brahman. All actions are possible because of Brahman: therefore Brahman permeates everything as butter permeates milk.

Adi Shankara

Like the space I fill all things within and without. Changeless and the same in all, at all times I am pure, unattached, stainless and motionless.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

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.

Adi Shankara

Sitting in a solitary place, freeing the mind from desires and controlling the senses, meditate with unswerving attention on the Atman which is One without-a-second.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Realise that to be Brahman which is neither subtle nor gross: neither short nor long: without birth or change: without form, qualities, colour and name.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Action cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance. Knowledge does verily destroy ignorance as light destroys deep darkness.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Though he lives in the conditionings, he, the contemplative one, remains ever unconcerned with anything or he may move about like the wind, perfectly unattached.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Each thing tends to move towards its own nature. I always desire happiness which is my true nature. My nature is never a burden to me. Happiness is never a burden to me, whilst sorrow is.

Adi Shankara (Tattva Bodhah)

The Atman, the Sun of Knowledge that rises in the sky of the heart, destroys the darkness of the ignorance, pervades and sustains all and shines and makes everything to shine.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

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 Shankara

He who renouncing all activities, who is free of all the limitations of time, space and direction, worships his own Atman which is present everywhere, which is the destroyer of heat and cold, which is Bliss-Eternal and stainless, becomes All-knowing and All-pervading and attains thereafter Immortality.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

Adi Shankara

Just as the fire is the direct cause for cooking, so without Knowledge no emancipation can be had. Compared with all other forms of discipline Knowledge of the Self is the one direct means for liberation.

Adi Shankara
(Atma Bodha)

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 Shankara

Attachment, desire, pleasure, pain, etc., are perceived to exist so long as Buddhi or mind functions. They are not perceived in deep sleep when the mind ceases to exist. Therefore they belong to the mind alone and not to the Atman.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

All the manifested world of things and beings are projected by imagination upon the substratum which is the Eternal All-pervading Vishnu, whose nature is Existence-Intelligence; just as the different ornaments are all made out of the same gold.

Adi Shankara

By a process of negation of the conditionings (Upadhis) through the help of the scriptural statement'It is not this, It is not this', the oneness of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul, as indicated by the great Mahavakyas, has to be realised.

Adi Shankara (Atma Bodha)

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 Shankara

Though he lives in the conditionings (Upadhis), he, the contemplative one, remains ever unconcerned with anything or he may move about like the wind, perfectly unattached. On the destruction of the Upadhis, the contemplative one is totally absorbed in "Vishnu", the All-pervading Spirit, like water into water, space into space and light into light. Realise That to be Brahman, the attainment of which leaves nothing more to be attained, the blessedness of which leaves no other blessing to be desired and the knowledge of which leaves nothing more to be known.

Adi Shankara

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Adi Shankara Biography

Adi Shankara portrait

Born: 788
Died: 820

Adi Shankara was an 8-9th century non-dual master philosopher and sage. He is best known for being one of the foremost proponents of the spiritual school of "Advaita Vedanta".

Notable Works

Atma Bodha
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi