Adi Shankara

“ Recognizing this perfectly illumined one, whose reality is altogether pure, as one recognizes the leader of men in the assembled army, and resting on that always, standing firm in one's own Self, sink all this world that is born, into the Eternal. ”

“ Hence this matter that is perceived is illusive, therefore set it aside; but what is grasped by its own selfhood--"that I am the Eternal"--know that with intelligence purified; know the Self as partless awakening.
Every pot and vessel has always clay as its cause, and its material is clay; just like this, this world is engendered by the Real, and has the Real as its Self, the Real is its material altogether. That Real than which there is none higher, THAT THOU ART, the restful, the stainless, secondless Eternal, the supreme. ”

“ Therefore one should perfectly know that the Eternal and the Self are not divided; for the wise who has become the Eternal does not return again to birth and death.
The real, wisdom, the endless, the Eternal, pure, supreme, self-perfect, the one essence of eternal bliss, universal, undivided, unbroken--this he gains.
This is the real, supreme, secondless, for besides the Self no other is; there is nothing else at all in the condition of perfect awakening to the reality of the supreme being. ”

“ Hence this higher Self is not what is called the intellectual veil, because that is changeful, helpless of itself, circumscribed, objective, liable to err; the non-eternal cannot be regarded as eternal.
The bliss-formed veil is a form containing the reflection of bliss--although it is tainted with darkness; it has the quality of pleasure, the attainment of well wished-for aims; it shines forth in the enjoyment of good works by a righteous man, of its own nature bliss-formed; gaining an excellent form, he enjoys bliss without effort. ”

“ That thought of 'I' and 'mine' in the flesh, the eye and the rest, that are not the Self--this transference from the real to the unreal is to be cast away by the wise man by steadfastness in his own Self. ”

“ Whatever is delusively perceived by one deluded, is the Eternal; the silver shining is only the pearl shell. The Eternal is perpetually conceived as formed; but what is attributed to the Eternal is a name only.
Therefore the supreme Eternal is Being, secondless, of the form of pure knowledge, stainless, peaceful, free from beginning or ending, changeless, its own-nature is unbroken bliss. ”

“ Whatever is enjoyed by anyone, of that he is the witness; but of that which is not enjoyed by anyone, it cannot be said that anyone is the witness.
That is to be self-witness, where anything is enjoyed by itself; therefore the universal Self is witness of itself ”

“ Water may be endlessly muddy, but when the mud is gone, the water is clear. As it shines, so shines the Self also, when faults are gone away, it shines forth clear.
And when unreality ceases to exist in the individual self, it is clear that it returns towards the universal ”

“ When the thing is well known even, this beginningless mode of thought, "I am the doer and the enjoyer," is very powerful; this mode of mind lasting strongly, is the cause of birth and rebirth. A looking backward toward the Self, a dwelling on it, is to be effortfully gained ”

“ As being essentially pure consciousness, the oneness between the Real and the Self is known by the awakened; and by hundreds of great texts the oneness, the absence of separateness, between the Eternal and the Self is declared. ”

“ The contradiction between them is built up by their disguises, but this disguise is no real thing at all; the disguise of the Master Self is the world-glamor, the cause of the Celestial and other worlds ”

“ If the world be real, then it should be apprehended in dreamless sleep; it is not apprehended there, therefore it is unreal, dreamlike, false. Therefore the world is not separate from the higher Self; what is perceived as separate is false,--the natural potencies and the like ”

“ This all, that is perceived as the vari-form world, from unknowledge, this all is the Eternal, when the mind's confusion is cast away.
The pot made of clay is not separate from the clay, for all through it is in its own nature clay; the form of the pot is not separate ”