A most valuable and lucid compendium of Advaita philosophy describing the transcendental knowledge of Brahman, and the way to achieve it through discrimination and meditation. Being an original production of Shankara's genius, the whole book is instinct with the prophetic vision of a seer, a man of realization, and the expression is so lucid and poetical that quite a new life has been breathed into the dry bones of philosophical discussion, and that too, on this most abstruse subject.
The important thing is how much less you think of the body, of yourself as matter -- as dead, dull, insentient matter; how much more you think of yourself as shining immortal being. The more you think of yourself as spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free from matter, body and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
-Swami Vivekananda