acintyam-avyaktam-ananta rupam
śivam praśāntam amṛtam brahmayonim
tathā ādimadhyāntavihīnam ekam
vibhum chid-ānandam arūpam adbhutam

(Who is) unthinkable, unmanifest, of endless forms
the good, the peaceful, Immortal, the origin of the worlds
without beginning, middle, and end, the only one
all-pervading, Consciousness, and Bliss, the formless and the wonderful

~ Kaivalya Upaniṣad, Verse 6
Translation Swāmi Mādhavānanda, from Minor Upaniṣads

"How can one's source, which can be experienced only after the ego-self has been completely annihilated, be thought of, via the ego, as "I am That"? To remain silent in one's "I" [the Self], with the ego destroyed, is the proper course."

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (740)

“There is no fortune greater than peace; there is no force greater than peace; there is no excellent tapas greater than peace; there is no immortal life greater than [living in] peace.”

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (796)

The three words, liquidity, sweetness and coolness, which are not opposed to each other, refer only to the single substance, water; which is unique. Likewise, though the Self is described as sat, cit and ānanda as if it has three different natures, upon keen investigation, these three words wil be known to refer only to the one Self.

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (979)

The Self is the Heart. The Heart is self-luminous. Light arises from the Heart and reaches the brain, which is the seat of the mind. The world is seen with the mind, that is, by the reflected light of the Self. It is perceived with the aid of the mind. When the mind is illumined it is aware of the world. When it is not itself so illumined, it is not aware of the world. If the mind is turned in towards the source of light, objective knowledge ceases and Self alone shines forth as the Heart.

The moon shines by the reflected light of the sun. When the sun has set, the moon is useful for revealing objects. When the sun has risen, no one needs the moon, although the pale disc of the moon is visible in the sky.

So it is with the mind and the Heart. The mind is useful because of its reflected light. It is used for seeing objects. When it is turned inwards, the source of illumination shines forth by itself, and the mind remains dim and useless like the moon in day-time.

~ Talks with Ramana Maharshi (98)

“The pure mind is itself Brahman; it therefore follows that Brahman is not other than the mind of the sage.”

~ Talks with Ramana Maharshi (204)

“By abiding steadfastly in the Heart, a life that is wholly suffused with true love flourishes without any obstruction as one's own nature. Since the illusory association, the veiling ego, has died, this life of love is indeed the splendour of jñāna, the enjoyment of Śiva-svarūpa that shines with extreme calm.”

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (1091)

“The heart-knot is full of the darkness of ignorance, and it is illusory. When this knot snaps and opens, consciousness, like the sky, surges undividedly, leading to a clear and enduring peace in which the Self shines forth in the Heart. Only the love for the Self that springs forth in the Heart is the true devotion that is full of auspiciousness.”

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (1209)

“In a heart that has drowned itself in the awareness of true jñāna, which is wholly love, bliss in its fullness will surge forth. Tormenting desires that arise through delusion do not exist there. That life, existing as the extremely pure svarūpa, is wholly peace.”

~ Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai (1093)

“After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world... Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.”

~ Karen Armstrong

“The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.”

~ T.S. Eliot

Soul of all souls, life of all life
you are That.

Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving
you are That.

The road that leads to the City is endless;
Go without head or feet
and you'll already be there.

What else could you be? --
you are that.

~ Rumi

Why are you so afraid of silence,
silence is the root of everything.
If you spiral into its void
a hundred voices will thunder messages
you long to hear.

~ Rumi

Of all the restrictive rules, that relating to the taking of sattvic food in moderate quantities is the best; by observing this rule, the sattvic quality of mind will increase, and that will be helpful to Self-enquiry.

~ Ramana Maharshi
   [Who Am I?]

Before studying anything else one has to study the Self. One has to study one's physical body, and one's subtle body and look within to the causal body. There is nothing else to study so no line of study is prescribed. Whatever may be useful according to place and time, and the type of literature which pleases you or seems to satisfy you, you can get help from them. It can come from any source, it makes no difference. The emphasis is the Self and the non-self. One has to study the Self so as to separate the non-self - one has to experience happiness so as to leave behind misery and unhappiness. One has to find what is useful to the True Self and make use of it and discard what is not useful to the True Self. These are the ways one can study.

~ Śāntānanda Sarasvatī

A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.

~ C. S. Lewis

Therefore, best of friends, setting all else completely aside, let us strive with all our powers to satisfy God first, without which it is impossible for anything to satisfy us, for us to satisfy others, or for us to satisfy ourselves in any way at all.

~ Marsilio Ficino

If only all might be hushed, sense impressions, the soul itself, all imagery, all symbols, all things transient, then we might hear the very voice of the eternal, and if that experience were prolonged, we would indeed enter into the joy of our Lord.

~ St Augustine

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

~ Romans 12, 2

There is nothing but water in the holy pools.
I know, I have been swimming in them.
All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word
I know, I have been crying out to them.
The sacred Books of the east are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through.
If you have not lived through something it is not true.

~ Kabir