As long as there dwells breath in the body, so long they enquire of your welfare at home. Once the breath leaves, the body decays, even the wife fears that very same body.
—Adi Shankaracharya
The desire for more and more wealth is dangerous. Cultivate the good sense to give up your desires. Wealth is the result of past deeds. Therefore be content with what you have.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Loud speech, profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Strive not, waste not your energy to fight against or to make friends with your enemy, friend, son or relative. Seeking the Self everywhere, lift the sense-of-difference born out of ‘ignorance’.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Very readily one indulges in carnal pleasures; later on, alas, come diseases of the body. Even though in the world the ultimate end is death, even then man leaves not his sinful behavior.
—Adi Shankaracharya
What is a true gift? One for which nothing is expected in return.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Topics: Buddhism
So long as one is in one’s boyhood, one is attached to play, so long as one is in youth, one is attached to one’s own young woman; so long as one is in old age, one is attached to anxiety, yet no one, alas to the Supreme Brahman, is ever seen attached.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Seeing the full bosom of young maidens and their navel, do not fall a prey to maddening delusion. This is but a modification of flesh and fat. Think well thus in your mind again and again.
—Adi Shankaracharya
‘Wealth is calamitous’, thus reflect constantly: the truth is that there is no happiness at all to be got from it. To the rich, there is fear even from his own son. This is the way with wealth everywhere.
—Adi Shankaracharya
The spirit is smothered, as it were, by ignorance, but so soon as ignorance is destroyed, spirit shine forth, like the sun when released from clouds.
—Adi Shankaracharya
As long as there is the ability to earn and save, so long are all your dependants attached to you. Later on, when you come to live with an old, infirm body, no one at home cares to speak even a word with you.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Who is a (true) spiritual teacher? He who, having grasped the essence of things, ever seeks to be of use to other beings.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Topics: Buddhism
When youthfulness has passed, where is lust and its play? When water is evaporated, where is the lake? When the wealth is reduced, where is the retinue? When the Truth is realised, where is the bonding with the outside world?
—Adi Shankaracharya
Through the company of the good, there arises non-attachment; through non-attachment there arises freedom from delusion; when there is freedom from delusion, there is the Immutable Reality; on experiencing the Immutable Reality, there comes the state of ‘liberated-in-life’.
—Adi Shankaracharya
O Mother! Let all my speech be your prayer; let all my crafts and technology be your worship and be the mystic gestures of my hand, adorning you. May all my movements become your devotional circumambulations. May everything I eat or drink be oblations to you. Let my lying down in rest and sleep be prostrations to you. Mother! Whatever I do, may all that become a sacramental service and worship for you.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Take no pride in your possession, in the people at your command, in the youthfulness that you have. Time loots away all these in a moment. Leaving aside all these, after knowing their illusory nature, realise the state of Brahman and enter into it.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Silence is the first door to spiritual eminence.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Just as a piece of rope is imagined to be a snake in the darkness so is Atman (soul) determined to be the body by an ignorant person.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Thy wealth is no assurance of heaven: Therefore be not vain of thy wealth, or of thy family, or of thy Oath. All are fleeting, all must change. Know this and be free. Enter the joy of the Lord. Seek neither peace nor strife.
—Adi Shankaracharya
The water drop playing on a lotus petal has an extremely uncertain existence; so also is life ever unstable. Understand, the very world is consumed by disease and conceit, and is riddled with pangs.
—Adi Shankaracharya
O Fool! Give up the thirst to possess wealth. Create in your mind, devoid of passions, thoughts of the Reality. With whatever you get, entertain your mind, be content.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Day and night, dawn and dusk, winter and spring, come and depart again and again. Time sports and life ebbs away. And yet, one leaves not the gusts of desires.
—Adi Shankaracharya
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Dada J. P. Vaswani Indian Hindu Philosopher
- Bhartrihari Hindu Philosopher, Grammarian
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