Adi Shankara: Quotes about the world

Adi Shankara was Hindu philosopher monk of 8th century. Explore interesting quotes on world.
Adi Shankara: 38   quotes 5   likes

“All the manifested world of things and beings are projected by imagination upon the substratum which is the Eternal All-pervading Vishnu, whose nature is Existence-Intelligence; just as the different ornaments are all made out of the same gold.”

Adi Shankara

Source: Atma Bodha (1987), p. 16: Quote nr. 9.

World , Imagination , Intelligence , Nature

“Brahman the Absolute alone is real; this world is transient (mithya is anirvachaneeya, cannot be defined, cannot be translated as unreal), but the jiva or the individual soul is not different from Brahman.”

Adi Shankara

Refer to current Sringeri Shankaracharya discourses in Telugu and Tamil (two different pravachans). Do not blindly translate "Mithya" as Unreal. Do not misrepresent what Adi Shankaracharya preached in Sanskrit to his students and world using useless English translations.
Alternative translation: Brahman is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.
Translation in Global Encyclopaedia of Indian Philosophy (2010), by N.K. Singh and A.P. Mishra, p. 16.

World , Soul

“Like bubbles in the water, the worlds rise, exist and dissolve in the Supreme Self, which is the material cause and the prop of everything.”

Adi Shankara

Source: Atma Bodha (1987), p. 14: Quote nr. 8.

World , Water

“Brahman (the existential substratum) is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.”

Adi Shankara

Original: (hi) Brahma satyam jagat mithyam, jivo brahmaiva naparah

World , Truth , Self-confidence