Karen Armstrong

 

"The focus of the Upanishads was the atman, the “self,” which, like the devas, was also a manifestation of the Brahman. So if the sage could discover the inner core of his own being, he would automatically enter into the ultimate reality. Only by the ecstatic knowledge of the self, which would free him of the desire for ephemeral things here below, would a person be liberated from the ceaseless cycle of rebirth and redeath. This was a discovery of immense importance. The"