Adi Shankaracharya is one of the colossal figures of Indian philosophy, religion, and spirituality. Adi Shankaracharya quotes reflect the genius of his intellect and his understanding of life. In his short life of just 32 years in the 8th century, he formalized the tenets of Advaita Vedanta, wrote numerous treatises and commentaries, and set up four Shankaracharya Mutts or Mathas at Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri, and Kedarnath. Born in the small village of Kalady in Kerala, Adi Shankara traveled across India during his lifetime.

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Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Adi Shankaracharya Teachings | Shankaracharya Quotes | Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya Quotes

Shri Shankaracharya has left a treasure house of thoughts and teachings, understanding which, one can improve the quality of earthly existence. We present here a collection of the thoughts of Shankaracharya Ji immortalized in words. So if you are looking for inspirational quotes by Adi Shankaracharya, spiritual-quotes of Adi Shankaracharya, Upanishads best quotes by Shankara, or any powerful quotes from Sankara, you will find them here.

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Shri Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Spiritual Quotes Of Shankara | Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya Quotes

Some of the famous works of Guru Shankaracharya include Vivekachudamani, Saundarya Lahiri, Bhaja Govindam, Upadesasahasri, Brahma Sutra Bhasya, Sivananda Lahari, among many others. These Sankaracharya Quotes are drawn from many of his innumerable works that are glittering jewels in the spiritual and religious literature of India. We begin with a quote about Shiva by Sree Sankaracharya.

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Adi Shankara Quotes On Shiva

“Forgive me
Oh, Shiva
My three great sins!
I came on a pilgrimage to Kashi forgetting that, you are omnipresent.
In thinking about you I forgot that You are beyond thought.
In praying to You I forgot that You are beyond words.”

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Top Quotes Of Adi Shankara Famous Quotes And Sayings

1. “Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations, and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme.”
2. “Do not look at anybody in terms of friend or foe, brother or cousin; do not fritter away your mental energies in thoughts of friendship or enmity. Seeking the Self everywhere, be amiable and equal-minded towards all, treating all alike.”
3. “The world, like a dream full of attachments and aversions seems real until the awakening.”
4. “Reality can be experienced only with the eye of understanding, not just by a scholar”
5. “Knowing that I am different from the body, I need not neglect the body. It is a vehicle that I use to transact with the world. It is the temple which houses the Pure Self within.”
6. “Curb your senses and your mind and see the Lord within your heart.”
7. “As gold purified in a furnace loses its impurities and achieves its own true nature, the mind gets rid of the impurities of the attributes of delusion, attachment, and purity through meditation and attains Reality.”
8. “Loud speech, a profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.”
9. “When your last breath arrives, Grammar can do nothing.”
10. “To be free from bondage the wise person must practice discrimination between One-Self and the ego-self.

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Adi Shankaracharya Quotes And Thoughts

1. By that alone you will become full of joy, recognizing Self as Pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss.”
2. “Give up identification with this mass of flesh as well as with what thinks it a mass. Both are intellectual imaginations. Recognize your true self as undifferentiated awareness, unaffected by time, past, present or future, and enter Peace.”
3. “There is sorrow infinitude. The Self is beyond time, space and objects. It is infinite and hence of the nature of absolute happiness.”
4. “You never identify yourself with the shadows 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.”
5. “What is an inquiry into the Truth? It is the firm conviction that the Self is real, and all, other than That, is unreal.”
6. “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.”
7. “Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized.”
8. “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.”
9. “Thus one should know oneself to be of the nature of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss[Sat-Chit-Ananda].”
10. “But the jiva [living being] is endowed with ego and his knowledge is limited, whereas Ishwar is without ego and is omniscient.”

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Adi Shankaracharya Quotes On God

1. “The witness of the three states of consciousness [waking, dream and deep sleep] and of the nature of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss is the Self”
2. “When our false perception is corrected, misery ends also.”
3. “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.”
4. “Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized.”
5. “Who but the Atman is capable of removing the bonds of ignorance, passion and self-interested action?”
6. “Where renunciation and longing for liberation are weak, tranquillity and the other virtues are a mere appearance, like the mirage in the desert.”
7. “Sickness is not cured by saying ‘Medicine,’ but by drinking it;”
8. 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’.
9. “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.”
10. “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 Quotes | Top Quotes By Adi Shankara | Adi Shankara Ideas

1. “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.”
2. “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.”
3. “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.”
4. “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 realized, where is the bonding with the outside world?”
5. “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 the man leaves not his sinful behavior.”
6. “Silence is the first door to spiritual eminence.”
7. “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.”
8. “Loud speech, a profusion of words, and possessing skillfulness in expounding scriptures are merely for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not lead to liberation.”
9. “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.”
10. “The fool thinks, “I am the body”; the intelligent man thinks, “I am an individual soul united with the body.” But the wise man, in the greatness of his knowledge and spiritual discrimination, sees the Self as the only reality and thinks, “I am Brahman.”
11. “As the mind becomes gradually established in the Self, it proportionately gives up the desire for external objects. When all such desires have been eliminated, there is the unobstructed realization of the Self.”
12. “Seated in a solitary place, free from desires and with senses controlled, one should meditate free of thought on that one infinite Self.”
13. “The entire universe is truly the Self. There exists nothing at all other than the Self. The enlightened person sees everything in the world as his own Self, just as one views earthenware jars and pots as nothing but clay.”
14. “Because all selves are essentially non-different, and their apparent difference is due to nescience only, the individual soul, after having dispelled nescience by true knowledge, passes into unity with the supreme Self.”

Adi Shankaracharya Quotes | Shankaracharya Quotes In Sanskrit | Adi Shankaracharya Teachings

अज्ञानता के कारण आत्मा सीमित लगती है
लेकिन जब अज्ञान का अंधेरा मिट जाता है
तब आत्मा के वास्तविक स्वरुप का ज्ञान हो जाता है.
जैसे बादलों के हट जाने पर सूर्य दिखाई देने लगता है.

आदि शंकराचार्य जी सनातन संस्कृति के प्राणधार हैं।
उन्होंने सभी समस्याओं का समाधान सनातन संस्कृति की वैभवशाली परम्परा में ही देखा।
अनेकानेक पंथों एवं विचारों की चुनौतियों से निपटने एवं समाज को
सत्य का दर्शन कराने के लिए उन्होंने अद्वैत वेदांत का मार्ग प्रशस्त किया।

अमृतं चैव मृत्युश्च द्वयं देहेप्रतिष्ठितम्।
मोहादुत्पद्यते मृत्युः सत्येनोत्पद्यतेऽमृतम्॥

तीर्थ करने के लिए किसी जगह जाने की जरूरत नहीं है.
सबसे बड़ा और अच्छा तीर्थ आपका अपना मन है
जिसे विशिष्ट रूप से शुद्ध किया गया हो.

Important Facts About Adi Shankaracharya

• Shankaracharya birthplace is in Kalady, Kerala, today there is a Kalady Sree Sankaracharya Temple that marks the spot where he is believed to have been born
• Sree Sankaracharya of Kalady traveled the length and breadth of India in his short life of 32 years
• There are Shankaracharya Maths in Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri, and Kedarnath
• The birth of Swami Shankara is celebrated as Adi Shankaracharya Jayanti or Shankara Jayanti

We hope that Adi Shankaracharya quotes and the gems from Adi Shankaracharya teachings inspire you and also bring solace. To know more about Adi Shankaracharya, his birth at Kalady, his life, and his teachings, do read our detailed blog post about Adi Shankaracharya. Let us know your thoughts through the comments section.

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