The Upanishads (Easwaran's Classics of Indian Spirituality Book 2)

The rasa of anything is subtler than it; it is its cause, its explanation, and the key to its significance; it is more real – more long-lasting – and the next step closer to the ultimate reality beyond both the knower and the known.

it is more accurate to think of ourselves as the forces which brought our body and personality into existence – forces that will continue shaping our destiny beyond what we call death, “as the wind takes on the fragrance from the flower” (Gita 15.8).

“The word swaraj is a sacred word,” he said, “a Vedic word, meaning self-rule and self-restraint, and not freedom from all restraint which ‘independence’ often means.”

we have the sensation “I want such-and-such,” what we really mean is that we want the relative tranquility that follows when that desire subsides.

ahimsa paramo dharma: “The highest religion, the ultimate law of our being, is nonviolence.”

What the sages mean is that if one sees through the symbolism of the ritual to its meaning and identifies with that inner core of meaning through spiritual union, rites become superfluous.

The soul has so shrunken from view that far from standing awestruck by its infinitude we have difficulty remembering that it exists: indeed, why speak of soul; mind or consciousness play no role in the electrochemical image of the human being which popular imagination and some scientists today present unchallenged.

Tradition has isolated four powerful formulaic utterances (mahavakyas) embedded in the early Upanishads. One is sarvam idam brahma, “All is Brahman” (Chandogya III.14.1), which states the foundation of mysticism: that everything is ultimately one.

“You are That” (tat tvam asi) is one of the mahavakyas.