Great Throughts Treasury

"This body is mortal, forever in the clutch of death. But within it resides the Self, immortal, and without form. This Self, when associated in consciousness with the body, is subject to pleasure and pain; and so long as this association continues, no man can find freedom from pains and pleasures. But when the association comes to an end, there is an end also of pain and pleasure. Rising above physical consciousness, knowing the Self as distinct from the sense-organs and the mind., knowing Him in his true light, one rejoices and one is free."

"In the final hour one should take refuge in three thoughts: You are the Indestructible; you are the Unshaken, you are the very Essence of Life."

"When one has faith, then he thinks. One who lacks faith does not think."

"Brahman is supreme; he is self-luminous, he is beyond all thought. Subtler than the subtlest is he, farther than the farthest, nearer than the nearest. He resides in the heart of every being."

"This soul of mine within the heart is smaller than a grain of rice, or a barley-corn, or a mustard-seed, or a grain of millet, or the kernel of a grain of millet. This soul of mine within the heart is greater than the earth, greater than the atmosphere, grater than the sky, greater than these worlds."

"All beings are one fourth of him; three fourths, the immortal in the sky."

"He should be searched out, Him one should desire to understand."

"As the bees, my dear, prepare honey by collecting the essences of different trees and reducing the essence to a unity, as they are not able to discriminate ?I am the essence of this tree,? ?I am the essence of that tree??even so, indeed, my dear, all creatures here, though they reach Being, know not ?We have reached Being.? . . . These rivers, my dear, flow, the eastern toward the east, the western toward the west. They go just from the ocean to the ocean. They become the ocean itself. As there they know not ?I am this one,? ?I am that one??even so, indeed, my dear, all creatures here, though they have come forth from Being, know not ?We have come forth from Being?"

"?tman alone is the whole world."

"He who knows ?Let me smell this,? ?Let me utter this,? ?Let me hear this,? ?Let me think this,? is the Self."

"His voice goes into his mind; his mind into his breath; his breath into heat; the heat into the highest divinity. That which is the finest essence?the whole world has that as its soul. That is Reality. That is ?tman. That art thou, ?vetaketu."

"He who moves about happy in dream?he is the Self."

"I alone am this whole world."

"Now, that serene one [the soul in sleep] who, rising up out of this body, reaches the highest light and appears with his own form?He is the Soul! That is the immortal, the fearless. That is Brahma. The name, verily, of that Brahma is the Real. . . . Day by day, verily, he who knows this goes to the heavenly world."

"Now, whether they perform the cremation obsequies in the case of such a person [i.e. a person who knows] or not, they [i.e. the dead] pass over into a flame; from a flame, into the day; from the day, into the half-month of the waxing moon; from the half-month of the waxing moon, into the six months during which the sun moves northwards; from the months, into the year; from the year, into the sun; from the sun, into the moon; from the moon, into lightning. There there is a person who is non-human. He leads them on to Brahma. This is the way to the gods, the way to Brahma. They who proceed by it return not to the human condition here!"

"One should reverence the thought ?I am the world-all!?"

"The seer sees not death, nor sickness, nor any distress. The seer sees only the All, obtains the All entirely."

"Now, when one is thus sound asleep, composed, serene, he knows no dream . . . so no evil touches him, for then he has reached the Bright Power."

"Therefore they say of him ?he sleeps,? for he has gone to his own."

"the Self which is free from evil, ageless, deathless, sorrowless, hungerless, thirstless, whose desire is the Real, whose conception is the Real."

"When one is sound asleep, composed, serene, and knows no dream?that is the Self."

"This whole world is Brahma. . . . This Soul of mine within the heart."

"Whosoever shall have such a mystic doctrine?be they gods or be they devils?shall perish."