Excerpts from "Select Works of Sri Sankaracharya by S. Venkataramanan"

1. There is naught else than Him; yet, this universe is not his real nature. He is not the objective world, for He is of the nature of nonobjective consciousness. And though He is devoid of the distinction of the knower, knowledge and the known, He is nevertheless always the knower,—that Hari, the destroyer of the darkness of samsâra, I praise.

2. Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than enquiry, just as the perception of things is impossible without light.

3. He who thinks "I am the body" remains, alas! in ignorance, as also he who thinks "this body is mine", as if he were always looking at an earthen vessel belonging to him.

4. A dream becomes unreal in the waking state; nor does the waking state exist in dream. Both dream and waking are absent in sleep,and sleep too is absent in dream and in waking.

5. Thus all the three states are unreal, being produced by the three qualities. The Eternal is the witness of these three states, beyond the three qualities, the One that is pure consciousness.

6. Just as the relation of effect and cause always subsists between the pot and clay, so does the same relation subsist between the world and Brahman. This is known both from the Vedas and by reasoning.

7. All this world, consisting of name and form, is only the particular manifestation (vyaskti) of the universal -Substance (virâj); it moves and knows all objects by virtue of the primal life (mukhya-prâna) that inspires it. This self, like the sun, is neither the doer nor the enjoyer.-Thus, directly realising, does he that is full of knowledge and realisation live his life, through incessant contemplation of the supreme self.

8. Water taken from the sea, when solidified, goes by the name of salt. When it is thrown back into the sea and is dissolved, it loses its name and form. So does the individual soul merge into the Supreme Self. At the same time, the mind is dissolved into the moon, speech into fire, sight into the sun, blood and semen into water and hearing into the directions.

9. Just as the one sun, independent of other objects, yet, by virtue of reflection in several waters, becomes many and has the same stability or motion as the medium reflecting it; so does the Supreme Self seem to be affected by

properties by virtue of its reflection in all beings, high and low, but, when clearly realised, shines unaffected by those properties.

10. One should clearly realise the self in all beings and all successive multitudes of created beings in the self. He should, repeatedly and persistently, perceive all things as the self, having, for an example, the relation between water and waves. There is only one Brahman without a second, as is declared by the Vedânta. The many do not in any way exist. But he who sees this universe as manifold passes from death to death.

11. Compared with all other means, knowledge is the only direct means to liberation. As cooking is impossible without fire, so is liberation impossible without knowledge.

12. Passions, desires, happiness, misery, etc., exercise their function when the consciousness is present, and do not exist in deep sleep when the consciousness is absent. They belong, therefore, to the consciousness and not to the self.

13. As light is the very nature of the sun, coldness of water, heat of fire, so are being, consciousness, bliss, eternity and absoluteness the very nature of the self.

14. That Brahman being known, all this universe will become known, in the same way as all earthern jars, pots, etc., become known by the clay, which is their cause, being known.