Advaita Vedanta

Template:IndicTextCentre

Advaita Vedanta (अद्वैत वेदान्त, pronounced as "ədvaitə vé:dα:ntə") is probably the best known of all Vedanta schools of philosophy of Hinduism, the others being Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita (total six). "Advaita" literally means "not two", and is often called a monistic or non-dualistic system which essentially refers to the indivisibility of the Self (Atman) from the Whole (Brahman). The key texts from which all Vedanta (lit., end or the goal of the Vedas) texts draw are the Upanishads (twelve or thirteen in particular), which are usually at the end of the Vedas, and the Brahma Sutras (also known as Vedanta Sutras), which in turn discuss the essence of the Upanishads.

Adi Sankara: The Pillar of Advaita

The first person to consolidate the principles of Advaita was Adi Sankara (आदि शंकर, pronounced as "α:di shənkərə", 788-820 CE, i.e., 788-820 AD). He is also known as Śankarāchārya (शंकराचार्य, pronounced as "shənkərα:chα:ryə"). Continuing the line of thought of some of the Upanishadic teachers, and also that of his own teacher's teacher Gaudapada, Sankara expounded the doctrine of Advaita — a nondualistic reality. According to Advaitins (followers of Advaita), Sankara exposed the relative nature of the world and established the supreme truth of the Advaita by analysing the three states of experience — being awake (vaishvanara), dreaming (swapna), and being in deep sleep (sushupti). The supreme truth of the Advaita is said to be the non-dual reality of Brahman, in which atman (the individual soul) and Brahman (the Supreme Consciousness) are identified absolutely. (Brahman is not to be confused with Brahma, the Creator and one-third of the Trimurti along with Shiva, the Destroyer and Vishnu, the Preserver.)

Psychologically, Advaita is a state in which the subject and object lose their independent identities — in which one can no longer differentiate on the basis of any material characteristics. The three states mentioned earlier are said to be mere transformations of this state of experience of non-duality turiya.

This idea of a fourth state of consciousness is borrowed from the Taittariya Upanishad, dating back to about 1000 BCE. It may be noted that another school of non-dual (but agnostic) thought, Buddhism, also talks of such a similar transcendental state (as vinnanam anidassanam, in the Brahmanimantanika Sutta (Majjhima-Nikaya)). The idea of such a state of enlightenment has been a favourite with ancient Indian philosophers, and still continues to be.

Sankara's contributions to Advaita are crucial. His main works are the commentaries on the Prasthanatrayi and the Gaudapadiya karikas. Another treatise on Advaita, popularly attributed to him by the more enthusiastic followers of the system, is the Viveka Chudamani. Note that many other followers believe that this is not the work of Sankara, citing several differences in style and ideas. Many philosophers after Sankara have criticized him of being hypocritical or praccanabauddha (Buddhist in disguise), mainly due to this work. This is because the Buddhist positions which Sankara refutes in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas seem to be wholly advocated in the Viveka Chudamani.

Sankara is also well known for propounding a system of bhakti (selfless devotion) and composing several bhajans (devotional songs), which he believed brought one closer to God. Some of his well-known bhajans are Bhaja Govindam, Saundaryalahari and Śivānandalahari.

Salient Features of Advaitism

Brahman — According to Sankara, the the Supreme Spirit or Brahman (pronounced as "brəhmən"; nominative singular Brahma, pronounced as "brəhmə") is the One, the whole and the only reality in the world. Other than Brahman, everything else, including, God, universe, material objects and individuals are not true. Brahman is (at best) described as that infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, incorporeal, transcedent and immanent reality that is the diving ground of all Being. It (gramatically neutral, but exceptionally treated as masculine) is the basis of the material world, which in turn is its illusionary transformation. Brahman is not the effect of the world. Due to ignorance (avidyā), the Brahman is visible as the material world and its objects. The actual Brahman is attributeless and formless (see Nirguna Brahman). It is the Self-existant, the Absolute and the Imperishable (not generally the object of worship but rather of meditation). But Sankara says that Brahman cannot be identified with Sunya or zeroness of Buddhism. Brahman is actually undescribable. It is at best, "Sat" + "Chit" + "Ananda", ie, Infinite Truth, Infinite Conscioussness and Infinite Bliss.

Māyā ("mα:yα:")— this is the most important contribution of Sankara. Māyā is that complex illusionary power of Brahman which causes the Brahman to be seen as the distinct material world. It has two main functions - one is to "cover up" Brahman from the human minds and the other is to present the material world in its stead. Maya is also indescribable. It is neither completely real nor completely unreal. Its shelter is Brahman, but Brahman itself is untouched by the profanity of Maya, just like a magician is not tricked by his own magic. Maya is temporary and is destroyed with "true knowledge". This Mayavada of Sankara was highly criticised. Bhaskaracharya, a Hindu mathematician, described Sankara to be indebted to the Buddhists for his concept of Maya. But Guff, Cowell and other writers claim to find the concept of Maya in a germinating form in the Vedas and the Upanishads.

God or Ishvara (pronounced as "ī:shvərə", lit., the Supreme Lord) — When man tries to know the attributeless Brahman with his mind, under the influence of Maya, Brahman becomes God. God is Brahman with Maya - the manifested form of Brahman. He is Saguna Brahman or Brahman with positive attributes. He is omniscient, omnipresent, incorporeal, independent, Creator of the world, its ruler and also destroyer. He is eternal and unchangeable. He is both immanent and transcedent. He may be even regarded to have a personality. He is the subject of worship. He is the basis of morality and giver of the fruits of one's Karma. He rules the world with his Maya. However, while God is the Lord of Maya and she (ie, Maya) is always under his control, living beings (jīva, in the sense of humans) are the servants of Maya (in the form of ignorance). This ignorance is the cause of the unhappiness and sin in the mortal world. While God is Infinite Bliss, humans are misereable. God (Ishvara) always knows the unity of the Brahman substance, and the Mayic nature of the world. There is no place of a Satan or devil in Hinduism, unlike Abrahamic religions. Advaitins explain the misery because of ignorance. God or Ishvara can also be visualized and worshipped in anthromorphic form like Vishnu, Krishna or Shiva. The proof for God that Sankara gives is only Shruti as God is beyond logic and thinking. This is similar to Kant 's philosophy about God in which he says that "faith" is the basis of theism.

Three levels of Truth — the highest or the Pāramārthika level in which Brahman is the only reality and nothing else; the pragmatic or the Vyāvahārika level in which both Jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and God (Ishvara) are true; and the apparent or the Prātibhāsikalevel in which even material world reality is actually false, like illusion of a snake over a rope.

Liberation or Moksha (akin to Nirvana of the Buddhists) — Advaitins also believe in the theory of reincarnation of souls (Atman) into plants, animals and humans according to their karma. They believe that suffering is due to Maya, and only true knowledge of the Brahman can destroy Maya. When Maya is removed, there exists ultimately no difference between the Jiva-Atman and the Brahman. Such a state of bliss called Moksha can even be achieved while living (jivana mukti). While one is in the pragmatic level, one can worship God in any way and in any form, like Krishna as he likes. Sankara himself was a proponent of devotional worship or Bhakti. But Sankara believes that Vedic sacrifices, puja and devotional worship can lead man to true knowledge, however, they cannot lead him directly to Moksha. Moksha is the outcome solely of true knowledge.

The famous mantra of Sankara was "Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithyā, jīvo Brahmaiva nāparah", ie, Brahman is the only truth, the world is unreal, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self.

Sankara also explicitly condemned the caste or varna system of the Hindu society, calling it utterly foolish. This is in contrast to other schools like Vishishtadvata, Mimamsa and Yoga who believe that since caste is based upon one's karmas in previous life, it should be unscruplously followed. Sankara also condemned many other superstitions.

Adi Sankara's thoughts

Adi Sankara's treatises on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras are his principal and almost undeniably his own works. Although he mostly adhered to traditional means of commenting on the Brahma Sutra, there are a number of original ideas and arguments. He taught that it was only through knowledge and wisdom of nonduality that one could be enlightened.

Sankara's opponents accused him of teaching Buddhism in the garb of Hinduism, because his non-dualistic ideals were a bit radical to contemporary Hindu philosophy. However, it may be noted that while the Later Buddhists arrived at a changeless, deathless, absolute truth after their insightful understanding of the unreality of samsara, historically Vedantins never liked this idea. Although Advaita also proposes the theory of Maya, explaining the universe as a "trick of a magician", Sankara and his followers see this as a consequence of their basic premise that Brahman is real. Their idea of Maya emerges from their belief in the reality of Brahman, rather than the other way around.

Sankara was a peripatetic orthodox Hindu monk who travelled the length and breadth of India. The more enthusiastic followers of the Advaita tradition claim that he was chiefly responsible for "driving the Buddhists away". Historically the decline of Buddhism in India is known to have taken place long after Sankara or even Kumarila Bhatta (who according to a legend had "driven the Buddhists away" by defeating them in debates), sometime before the Muslim invasion into Afghanistan (earlier Gandhara).

Although today's most enthusiastic followers of Advaita believe Sankara argued against Buddhists in person, a historical source, the Madhaviya Sankara Vijayam, indicates that Sankara sought debates with Mimamsa, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika and Yoga scholars as keenly as with any Buddhists. In fact his arguments against the Buddhists are quite mild in the Upanishad Bhashyas, while they border on the acrimonious in the Brahma Sutra Bhashya.

Sankara proposed that while the phenomenal universe, our consciousness and bodily being, are certainly experienced, they are not true reality. He did not seek to negate them, but considered that the ultimate truth was Brahman, the unborn essence of the Universe that is beyond time, space and causation. Brahman is immanent and transcendent, but not merely a pantheistic concept. This contrasts with Buddhism: Advaita talks of the nature of the Universe as a reality "lesser" than Brahman, which is the absolute reality. Buddhism on the other hand, describes the Universe as a mere illusion caused due to ignorance that leads to a false concept of the "self". About any concept of Brahman, Buddhism (and Lord Buddha himself) chiefly remains silent, since "the absolute truth is incomprehensible and unutterable".

"How", Sankara asks, "can a limited mind comprehend the limitless Self?" "It cannot", he argues, "and therefore we must transcend even the mind and become one with Soul-consciousness". This necessitates that, since the mind is not the basis of such an experience, the experience (anubhuti) of the absolute truth be without any form, feelings, thoughts etc. In other words Brahman is nirguna (without attributes).

Subsequent Vedantins debated whether the reality of Brahman was nirguna or saguna (with attributes). Belief in the concept of Saguna Brahman gave rise to a proliferation of devotional attitudes and more widespread worship of Vishnu and Shiva, similar to Christianity in the West. Kevala Advaita Vedanta denies Saguna Brahman. Sankara, however, encouraged worship of God, if only because the true nature of nirguna Brahman is inaccessible to the general population. It emerges from his Bhashyas on the Upanishads that Sankara completely denies Saguna Brahman and proclaims that true enlightenment occurs only if one knows the truth of non-duality.

The Vishistadvaita and Dvaita schools believed in an ultimately saguna Brahman. They differ passionately with Advaita, and believe that his nirguna Brahman is not different from the Buddhist Sunyata (wholeness or zeroness) — much to the dismay of the Advaita school. A careful study of the Buddhist Sunyata will show that it is in some ways metaphysically similar as Brahman. Whether Sankara agrees with the Buddhists is not very clear from his commentaries on the Upanishads. His arguments against Buddhism in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas are more a representation of Vedantic traditional debate with Buddhists than a true representation of his own individual belief. (See link: Sankara's arguments against Buddhism)

Some Teachings of Advaita Vedanta

Two other well-known and influential nondualist texts are the "Ashtavakra Gita" and "Avadhuta Gita", the former said to have been written by the Sage Ashtavakra and the latter by Sage Dattatreya.

Verse twenty-five of the Avadhuta (Ever-Free) Gita says:

By such sentences as "That thou art," our own Self is affirmed. Of that which is untrue and composed of the five elements - the Sruti (scripture) says, "Not this, not this." (Neti Neti)

This is a powerful and coherent summary of the Advaita path of Jnana Yoga, of viveka (discrimination). Advaita teaches an apophatic approach to the absolute truth. The traditional neti neti approach of the Upanishads is echoed in Advaita. This is very much similar to the apophatic approach of Buddhism Anatta. Brahman is not the body nor the mind. Through this process, the aspirant, or yogi, soon realizes that Brahman is all, is infinite Sacchidananda (Absolute Truth-Consciousness-Bliss) and attains moksha (liberation.)

The Impact of Advaita

Advaita Vedanta philosophy had a tremendous impact on the Hindu system of Tantra and also served to bolster Yogic (see Yoga) ideas of the ultimate Self, Brahman/Atman, being One. Advaita rejuvenated much of Hindu thought and also spurred on debate that led to the expounding of Vishishtadvaita (qualified nondualism) and Dvaita (dualism). Advaita served to bring to the fore the Hindu/Vedic philosophy whose seed can be seen in the Rig Vedic statement "Truth is One, though the sages see it as many." Advaitism is definitely the deepest and the most influential philosophy of India. Even today, pious Hindus regard material wealth and money as "Moha-Maya".

Advaita and Science

According to some followers of Advaita, it may very well be a place where the scientific world intersects with the spiritual world. They point to the relationships between mass, frequency, and energy that 20th century physics has established and the Advaitic 'Unity of the Universe' as the common ground. They feel that these relationships, formalized as equations by Planck and Einstein, suggest that the whole mesh of the Universe blend into a One that exhibits itself as many (namely, mass, energy, wave etc), and that this follows Advaita's view that everything is but the manifestation of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent "One". It must be remembered however, that none of these physicists have talked of an 'omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent "One"'.

They also connect the De Broglie waves of modern physics to Aum in Hindu philosophy. However, scientists in India and abroad clarify that the de Broglie waves (or matter waves) are neither optical not acoustic waves, but are "just functions of a probability distribution of finding a particle, which may be represented as a Fourier sum of constituent probability waves."

However, notable scientists like Erwin Schrödinger and Robert Oppenheimer were also Vedantists. Fritjof Capra's book, The Tao of Physics, is one among several that pursue this viewpoint as it investigates the relationship between modern, particularly quantum, physics and the core philosophies of various Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.

It must be noted that Advaita does not share the same ground on Science as other schools of philosophy do. For example, Sankara rejected the idea of momentariness of the Universe in his Brahma Sutra commentary since Brahman is immanent in the Universe, while Buddhists affirm that the universe on its own accord, due to the causality of the dharmas, is constantly changing. The dvaita-enthusiasts on the contrary, blame Sankara for inconsistency, since he adopts the view that the Universe is momentary in many of his other works like the Upanishad bhashya. Dvaita-enthusiasts see the Universe as a creation of God, while Advaitins see it as a manifestation of Brahman; Buddhists on the other hand see it as a flux of changes, originating from natural phenomena leading to its formation.

Important Books and Figures of Advaita Vedanta

Mahavakya

Mahavakya, or "the great sentences," state the unity of Brahman and Atman. They are 4 in number and their variations are found in other Upanishads.

Sr. No.	Vakya	Meaning	Upanishad	Veda
1	प्रज्नानम ब्रह्म prajnānam brahmā	Brahman is knowledge	aitareya	Rig Veda
2.	अहम ब्रह्मास्मि Aham brahmāsmi	I am brahman	brihadāranyaka	Yajur Veda
3.	तत्त्त्वमसि tattvamasi	That thou art	chhandogya	Sama Veda
4.	अयमात्मा ब्रह्म Ayamātmā brahmā	This Atman is Brahman	mandukya	Atharva Veda

Founders & key texts

Sri Adi Shankaracharya - (attributed work) Viveka Chudamani, the Brahma Sutra Bhashya Bhagavad Gita Bhashya, Upanishad bhashya.
Upanishads
Vedanta Sutras
Vedas
Traditional life history of Adi Shankara - Historical record accepted by scholars worldwide. Written by Madhava Vidyaranya, English translations by Swamy Tapsyananda of Ramkrishna Ashram, Mylapore, Chennai.

mahavkyas are six in number-

1-aham brahmasmi

2-ayam atma brahma

3-tat tvam asi

4-sarvam khalvidam brahma

5-pragyanam brahma

6-soham

Gods, Sages, and Saints of Advaitins

Later teachers and proponents

Shri Ramakrishna (1836-1886) well-known modern proponent of Advaita; the primary source book, Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna (Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita), was written by an eyewitness devotee 'M'. It documents his later life and conversations with disciples/devotees and serves as the key reference for his philosophy/teachings
Sai Baba of Shirdi (c. 1838-1918), a mystic philosopher of Maharashtra, he was followed devoutedly by Hindus and Muslims alike and practiced a blend of Vedantic Hinduism and Sufi Islam.
Swami Vivekananda - disciple of Shri Ramakrishna - wrote books on four Hindu Yogas: Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga. See also the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda for a thorough collection of transcribed lectures. Spoke at the 1893 Parliament of Religions at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago
Shri Narayana Guru (1856-1928)- Vedic scholar, mystic philosopher, prolific poet and social reformer, who, after Adi Shankara, was the next greatest proponent of Advaita Vedanta from the present-day Kerala
Sri Aurobindo Bengali philosopher-sage who synthesized Advaita thought with Western theories of evolution.
Shri Ramana Maharshi - a silent sage of Tamil Nadu who intensely embraced the realization of nondual philosophy
Shri Swami Tapovan Maharaj - A virakta mahatma
Shri Swami Sivananda, Divine Life Society. Bestowed sannyas iniitiation of Swami Chinmayananda, scholar, and author of over 300 books on Hinduism, many available on the web.
Shri Swami Chinmayananda Jnana diksha bestowed under Shri Swami Tapovan Maharaj in Uttarkashi -descended to the plains of the subcontinent and proceeded across continents where disciples founded the Chinmaya Mission. 'chinmaya' = pure consciousness of bliss...
Shri Swami Dayananda Saraswati - a contemporary Advaitist whose voluminous writings are only as historic as his work in uniting disparate Hindu sects under a single body known as the Arya Samaj.
Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj A twentieth century master.
Shri Sathya Sai Baba - Philosophies draw on Hindu philosophy while also acknowledging other major religions.
Shri Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - founder of the Transcendental Mediation programme and movement, which have practices and philosophy firmly routed in the Advaita tradition. The TM initiation puja references Adi Shankara and the monastery set up by his devotee Trotakacharya at Jyotir Math, this was the same monastery re-established by Shri Brahmananda Saraswati, Maharishi’s master, often referred to as "Guru Dev".
Shri Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - founder of Society of Abidance in Truth (www.satramana.org). Teaches in tradition of Ramana Maharshi. Co-translator of English translation of Adi Sankara's Svatmanirupanam - The True Definition of One’s Own Self and Ribhu Gita (The Sanskrit Ribhu Gita). Tranlator of Adi Sankara's Nirvana-satkam - Six Verses on Nirvana.

External links

Other References

"Bhāratīya Darshan" (भारतीय दर्शन) by Mishra, M., Kalā Prakāshan.

Other Scholars