The Illusion of the Knower

The Self never undergoes change; the intellect never possesses consciousness. But when one sees all this world, he is deluded into thinking, “ I am the seer, I am the knower.”
Mistaking one’s Self for the individual entity, one is overcome with fear. If one knows oneself not as the individual but as the supreme Self, one becomes free from fear.

The entire universe is truly the Self. There exists nothing at all other than the Self. The enlightened person sees everything in the world as his own Self, just as one views earthenware jars and pots as nothing but clay.
~Shri Shankaracharya (probably 788 CE - 820 CE).