“#123: The modifications of the intellect are manifested, known and endowed with existence by another, i.e. the Self which is immediately known and different from them. It is inferred with the help of the example of a lamp.” (from Chap.XVIII. Upadesa Sahasri of Sankara)
The lamp is one of those basic analogies in Advaita which act to prime the intellect.. A lamp renders visible both itself and whatever is in its vicinity. The bodymind is not self luminous as is held by Buddhist and Western philosophy. It is inert by nature. In the presence of the Self the modifications of the mind become apparently self conscious. This occurs through their superimposition on the Self which is pure consciousness.
In another remark on self-luminous cognition BsBh. II.ii.28 Sankara writes:
“When you assert that cognition shines by itself like a lamp without requiring some other cognition, you virtually say that a cognition is not apprehended by any other means of knowledge or by anything else, which would be like saying that a thousand lamps shine (unknown) within a massive boulder.”
If you think solely in terms of cognition as an ultimate that is its own basis then you accept a cognition without a cogniser or an infinite regress.
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