Adi Shankara
Adi Shankara Quotes about Body
By knowing Brahman one achieves Immortality here [in this body]. There is no other way to its attainment.
Just as a stone, a tree, a straw, grain, a mat, a cloth, a pot, and so on, when burned, are reduced to earth (from which they came), so the body and its sense organs, on being burned in the fire of Knowledge, become Knowledge and are absorbed in Brahman, like darkness in the light of the sun.
He who knows that imperishable Being, bright, without shadow, without body, without colour, verily obtains the Supreme.
You never identify yourself with the shadows cast by your body, or with its reflection, or with the body you see in a dream or in your imagination. Therefore you should not identify yourself with this living body either.
Desiring what, and for whose sake, are you wearying out the body?
Knowing that I am different from the body, I need not neglect the body. It is a vehicle that I use to transact with the world. It is the temple which houses the Pure Self within.