Adi Shankara

The tremblings that belong to the waters are attributed through ignorance to the reflected moon dancing on it.

Likewise, agency of action, of enjoyment and of other limitations, which really belong to the mind, are delusively understood as the nature of the self.

Attachment, desire, pleasure, pain are perceived to exist so long as buddhi or mind functions.

They are not perceived in deep sleep when the mind ceases to exist.

Therefore they belong to the mind alone and not to the hatman.

Just as luminosity is the nature of the sun, coolness of water and heat of fire, so too the nature of the Atman is eternity, purity, reality, consciousness and bliss.

By the indiscriminate blending of the two, the existence knowledge aspect of the self and the thought wave of the intellect, there arises the notion of I know.

Atman never does anything and the intellect of its own accord has no capacity to experience I know.

But the individuality in us delusorily thinks they are themselves the seer and the knower.

Just as the person who regards a rope as a snake is overcome by fear, so also one considering themselves as the ego is overcome by fear.

The egocentric individuality in us regains fearlessness by realizing that it is not ajiva.

but is itself the Supreme Soul.

Just as a lamp illumines a jar or a pot, so also the Atman illumines the mind

and the sense organs.

These material objects by themselves cannot illumine themselves because they are inert.

A lighted lamp

does not need another lamp to illumine its light.

So too Atman, which is knowledge itself, needs no other knowledge to know it.

by a process of negation of the conditionings.

Through the help of the scriptural statement, it is not this, it is not this, the oneness of the individual soul and the Supreme Soul, as indicated by the great Mahavakyas, has to be realized.