NON-DUALITY
Advaita
The word Advaita is a composite of two Sanskrit words:
• Prefix "a-" (अ), meaning "non-"
• "Dvaita" (द्वैत), which means 'duality' or 'dualism'.
Vedanta (/veɪˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: वेदान्त, IAST: Vedānta), is one of the six (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, the speculations and philosophies contained in the Upanishads, specifically, knowledge and liberation.
For me personally, reading Vedanta is like reading pure sunlight. It is so pure, clean and beautiful. Shining with the highest Truth that scriptures can contain, it literally moves me to tears with its sheer and utter philosophical luminosity. I like non-dual Buddhist teachings as well, but pure Advaita Vedanta is more deeply transformative for my own personal practice. From Gaudapada to Adi Shankaracharya to modern teachers like Ramana Maharshi, Vedanta provides perhaps the most direct path to the True Self.
The word Advaita is a composite of two Sanskrit words:
• Prefix "a-" (अ), meaning "non-"
• "Dvaita" (द्वैत), which means 'duality' or 'dualism'.
Vedanta (/veɪˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: वेदान्त, IAST: Vedānta), is one of the six (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, the speculations and philosophies contained in the Upanishads, specifically, knowledge and liberation.
For me personally, reading Vedanta is like reading pure sunlight. It is so pure, clean and beautiful. Shining with the highest Truth that scriptures can contain, it literally moves me to tears with its sheer and utter philosophical luminosity. I like non-dual Buddhist teachings as well, but pure Advaita Vedanta is more deeply transformative for my own personal practice. From Gaudapada to Adi Shankaracharya to modern teachers like Ramana Maharshi, Vedanta provides perhaps the most direct path to the True Self.
Overview
The ancient Hindu system of Vedanta designates Ultimate Reality as Brahman, which is also described as Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness or Knowledge -Bliss. Brahman is the only Real existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no plurality. But through maya (magic or illusion), Its incomprehensible Power, time, space and causality are created and the One appears to break up into the many. The eternal Spirit appears as a manifold of individuals endowed with form in space and cast under the illusion of time. The Immortal Self becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell.
But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his Liberation, therefore by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with Universal Spirit, he realizes indescribable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. And this ultimate goal of all religions - to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
---
Brahman - Impersonal or Formless God - Absolute - (All there is is Consciousness)
Brahman is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.
the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal.
The ancient Hindu system of Vedanta designates Ultimate Reality as Brahman, which is also described as Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness or Knowledge -Bliss. Brahman is the only Real existence. In It there is no time, no space, no causality, no plurality. But through maya (magic or illusion), Its incomprehensible Power, time, space and causality are created and the One appears to break up into the many. The eternal Spirit appears as a manifold of individuals endowed with form in space and cast under the illusion of time. The Immortal Self becomes a victim of birth and death. The Changeless undergoes change. The sinless Pure Soul, hypnotized by Its own maya, experiences the joys of heaven and the pains of hell.
But these experiences based on the duality of the subject-object relationship are unreal. Even the vision of a Personal God is, ultimately speaking, as illusory as the experience of any other object. Man attains his Liberation, therefore by piercing the veil of maya and rediscovering his total identity with Brahman. Knowing himself to be one with Universal Spirit, he realizes indescribable Peace. Only then does he go beyond the fiction of birth and death; only then does he become immortal. And this ultimate goal of all religions - to dehypnotize the soul now hypnotized by its own ignorance.
---
Brahman - Impersonal or Formless God - Absolute - (All there is is Consciousness)
Brahman is the only Reality, ever pure, ever illumined, ever free, beyond the limits of time, space and causation. Though apparently divided by names and forms through the inscrutable power of maya, that enchantress who makes the impossible possible, Brahman is really One and undivided. When a seeker merges in the beatitude of samadhi, he does not perceive time and space or name and form, the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal. Give it up. Destroy the prison-house of name and form and rush out of it with the strength of a lion. Dive deep in search of the Self and realize It through samadhi. You will find the world of name and form vanishing into void, and the puny ego dissolving in Brahman-Consciousness. You will realize your identity with Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.
the offspring of maya. Whatever is within the domain of maya is unreal.
Practice
Traditionally, the path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, or knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges with the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled forever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the rigid tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed into eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
Traditionally, the path of the Vedantic discipline is the path of negation, "neti", in which, by stern determination, all that is unreal is both negated and renounced. It is the path of jnana, or knowledge, the direct method of realizing the Absolute. After the negation of everything relative including the discriminating ego itself, the aspirant merges with the One without a Second, in the bliss of nirvikalpa samadhi, where subject and object are alike dissolved. The soul goes beyond the realm of thought. The domain of duality is transcended. Maya is left behind with all its changes and modifications. The Real Man towers above the delusions of creation, preservation, and destruction. An avalanche of indescribable Bliss sweeps away all relative ideas of pain and pleasure, good and evil. There shines in the heart the glory of the Eternal Brahman, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Knower, knowledge and known are dissolved in the Ocean of one eternal Consciousness; love, lover and beloved merge in the unbounded Sea of supreme Felicity; birth, growth and death vanish in infinite Existence. All doubts and misgivings are quelled forever; the oscillations of the mind are stopped; the momentum of past actions is exhausted. Breaking down the rigid tabernacle in which the soul has made its abode for untold ages, stilling the body, calming the mind, drowning the ego, the sweet joy of Brahman wells up in that superconscious state. Space disappears into nothingness, time is swallowed into eternity, and causation becomes a dream of the past. Only Existence is. Ah! Who can describe what the soul then feels in its communion with the Self?
Even when man descends from this dizzy height, he is devoid of ideas of "I" and "min"; he looks on the body as a mere shadow, an outer sheath encasing the soul. He does not dwell on the past, takes no thought for the future, and looks with indifference on the present. He surveys everything in the world with an eye of equality; he is no longer touched by the infinite variety of phenomena; he no longer reacts to pleasure and pain. He remains unmoved whether he - that is to say, his body - is worshipped by the good or tormented by the wicked; for he realizes that it is the one Brahman that manifests Itself through everything.
"That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another. What is shallow is worthless and can never give felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject."
- From the Upanishads
As beautiful as traditional Vedanta is, there is still some inherent duality with regards to Maya and a bias to the Absolute. This problem was most masterfully reconciled and updated by the great great saint Ramakrishna, who has been in my life one of my top five favorite spiritual teachers because he so perfectly manifested both the Absolute and the Relative, Pure Jnani Knowledge and Supreme Bhakti Devotion.
"That knowledge is shallow by which one sees or hears or knows another. What is shallow is worthless and can never give felicity. But the Knowledge by which one does not see another or hear another or know another, which is beyond duality, is great, and through such Knowledge one attains Infinite Bliss. How can the mind and senses grasp That which shines in the heart of all as the Eternal Subject."
- From the Upanishads
As beautiful as traditional Vedanta is, there is still some inherent duality with regards to Maya and a bias to the Absolute. This problem was most masterfully reconciled and updated by the great great saint Ramakrishna, who has been in my life one of my top five favorite spiritual teachers because he so perfectly manifested both the Absolute and the Relative, Pure Jnani Knowledge and Supreme Bhakti Devotion.
Ramakrishna Paramahansa - Completing Vedanta
(Analogue to How Yogachara and Vajrayana completed Buddhism - both systems in different ways bring the relative into balance with the Absolute, bringing both the Father and Mother into equal embrace as equals in the Nondual Ultimate Reality.)
The Divine Mother and Maya - Relative - Form - Personal God (All there is is Energy)
Having achieved the profound state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the seeming goal of Vedanta, Sri Ramakrishna went a step further to the Sahaj state, bringing everything full circle. Ramakrishna was fully aware that the world is an illusory appearance of Maya, like the Orthodox monist and acknowledged its power in the relative life.
Note: Monism is a Vedantic and Idealist view that there is only one kind of ultimate substance, ie Brahman or consciousness, etc. But nonduality is not only Oneness as it embraces BOTH Oneness and manyness. So the traditional Vedantic view is admirable but incomplete (as are all monist philosophies).
But Ramakrishna, unlike traditional Vedantists, was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him, maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What Ramakrishna had realized on the heights of the transcendental higher planes, he also found below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And the garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Diving Immanence. That is he was seeing with Nondual sight, prajna. This transparency (or emptiness) to transcendence is a hallmark of a true nondual cognition because it dissolves the subject-object illusory 'boundary'.
(Analogue to How Yogachara and Vajrayana completed Buddhism - both systems in different ways bring the relative into balance with the Absolute, bringing both the Father and Mother into equal embrace as equals in the Nondual Ultimate Reality.)
The Divine Mother and Maya - Relative - Form - Personal God (All there is is Energy)
Having achieved the profound state of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the seeming goal of Vedanta, Sri Ramakrishna went a step further to the Sahaj state, bringing everything full circle. Ramakrishna was fully aware that the world is an illusory appearance of Maya, like the Orthodox monist and acknowledged its power in the relative life.
Note: Monism is a Vedantic and Idealist view that there is only one kind of ultimate substance, ie Brahman or consciousness, etc. But nonduality is not only Oneness as it embraces BOTH Oneness and manyness. So the traditional Vedantic view is admirable but incomplete (as are all monist philosophies).
But Ramakrishna, unlike traditional Vedantists, was all love and reverence for maya, perceiving in it a mysterious and majestic expression of Divinity. To him, maya itself was God, for everything was God. It was one of the faces of Brahman. What Ramakrishna had realized on the heights of the transcendental higher planes, he also found below, everywhere about him, under the mysterious garb of names and forms. And the garb was a perfectly transparent sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Diving Immanence. That is he was seeing with Nondual sight, prajna. This transparency (or emptiness) to transcendence is a hallmark of a true nondual cognition because it dissolves the subject-object illusory 'boundary'.
For Ramakrishna, maya, the mightly weaver of the garb of creation, is none other than the Divine Mother (or you could say the Personal God as distinguished from Brahman the impersonal God, but they are of course 'not-2").
She is the primordial Divine Energy, Shakti (all there is is Energy), and she can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire.
She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate dance by Her will. Rather than veiling truth, the world is a glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya = Brahman, much like Samsara = Nirvana in Mahayana Buddhist.
The Divine Mother asked Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness, the 'border line' (for lack of a better word) between the Absolute and Relative.
Staying Sixth Center of Tantra - See not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centers.
He gently oscillated back and forth across the 'dividing line'. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal God, the immanent and transcendent aspects of Ultimate Reality.
Sri Ramakrishna summarizes the Unity of Relative (Maya) and Absolute (Brahman):
"When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive - neither creating nor preserving nor destroying. I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active, creating, preserving, and destroying, I call Him Shakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one."
Neti Neti for Brahman (Not this, not this).
Iti Iti for the Divine Mother (This , this).
The world is an illusion (Maya/Relative)
Brahman alone is real (Absolute)
Brahman is the world. (Brahman = Maya)
She is the primordial Divine Energy, Shakti (all there is is Energy), and she can no more be distinguished from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from fire.
She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider spins its web. She ensnares men with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate and inanimate dance by Her will. Rather than veiling truth, the world is a glorious manifestation of the Divine Mother. Maya = Brahman, much like Samsara = Nirvana in Mahayana Buddhist.
The Divine Mother asked Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless Absolute but to remain on the threshold of relative consciousness, the 'border line' (for lack of a better word) between the Absolute and Relative.
Staying Sixth Center of Tantra - See not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the Kundalini in the lower centers.
He gently oscillated back and forth across the 'dividing line'. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the Personal and the Impersonal God, the immanent and transcendent aspects of Ultimate Reality.
Sri Ramakrishna summarizes the Unity of Relative (Maya) and Absolute (Brahman):
"When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive - neither creating nor preserving nor destroying. I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active, creating, preserving, and destroying, I call Him Shakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one."
Neti Neti for Brahman (Not this, not this).
Iti Iti for the Divine Mother (This , this).
The world is an illusion (Maya/Relative)
Brahman alone is real (Absolute)
Brahman is the world. (Brahman = Maya)
Advaita is often translated as "non-duality," but a more apt translation is "non-secondness." Advaita has several meanings:
• Nonduality of subject and object As Gaudapada states, when a distinction is made between subject and object, people grasp to objects, which is samsara. By realizing one's true identity as Brahman, there is no more grasping, and the mind comes to rest.
• Nonduality of Atman and Brahman, the famous diction of Advaita Vedanta that Atman is not distinct from Brahman; the knowledge of this identity is liberating.
• Monism: there is no other reality than Brahman, that "Reality is not constituted by parts," that is, ever-changing 'things' have no existence of their own, but are appearances of the one Existent, Brahman; and that there is in reality no duality between the "experiencing self" (jiva) and Brahman, the Ground of Being.
It is referred to as Brahman. Brahman has no attributes, but it is an entity that encompasses omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), Omni benevolence (perfect goodness), immutable, divine simplicity, and eternal existence. Brahman exists in spaceless and timeless dimension in an unchanging reality amidst and beyond the realm of the universe. These qualities are personal and impersonal; variously referred to as God or the Supreme Lord in Hinduism. (One God is worshipped in various forms such as Krishna, Vishnu, Rama, Hari, Shiva, Brahma, Shakti, Kali, etc.)
The Pure Consciousness, the Brahman transcend all possible laws of physics, all dimensions and all physical realities in an infinite space that may have multiverse. That is the True Reality. There is no room for dualistic thought, such as God and living-beings having separate existence; or God and material world are two different things. There is no separate subject and object; there is no me and Almighty God; there is no you and Almighty God. There is Oneness. Brahman as a transcendental entity in a spiritual domain that defies all humanly description or characterization. As sage Yajnavalkya observed that “there is no other or better description (of Brahman) than “not this, not this” (neti neti).
Advaita is widely regarded as the pinnacle of wisdom among Hindu philosophers in post-Vedic India. It is a metaphysical system that explains physical reality in the most profound form. It is an unflinching theory and a focused system of thought that has intellectual depth and great insight that comes close to the reality reasoned within the laws of quantum physics. Erwin Schrodinger, the father of wave mechanics was a life-long Vedantin (Advaitin) according to his biographer, Walter J. Moore. Schrodinger showed the wave-particle duality of matter at its most fundamental existence. All quantum states theoretically calculated for a particle exist in spacetime until an experimental observation collapses them into one particular state. Before measurements, the particle (wave) can exists at virtually anywhere in the universe; it could be at two places at the same time. This wholesomeness of quantum reality and existence is inherent in nature.
Summary of Vedanta
The world has no separate existence apart from Brahman. The experiencing self (jīva) and the transcendental self of the Universe (ātman) are in reality identical (Oneness in Brahman). Although the individual self seems different from Brahman, like space inside a milk bottle that looks different from space outside if it. The space inside the bottle takes the shape of the bottle, but it is still part of the larger space. Plurality is experienced because of error in judgments (mithya) and ignorance (avidya). Advaita Vedanta interpret the relationship between Brahman and the world in terms of satkaryavada, the theory that effect pre-exists in the cause. The vivartavada theory observes that effect is only an apparent manifestation of its cause. Both lead to same conclusion and are rooted in the same action, the cause which is a concept of Maya, avidya (ignorance) and adhyasa. When we transform the impersonal (Brahman) being into personal being. We bring an association of the impersonal with Maya. Maya is the ontic-noetic state where limitations (upadhis) are imposed upon reality. Attachments, aversions, fears, dreams, and semi-dreams are all smeared with illusory power of Maya. All memories, cognitions, percepts, and logics are grounded in mirage, apparition and deceptive appearance. Maya appears whenever we fail to realize the oneness of the Brahman.
Advaita establishes the Oneness of Reality and this self-knowledge enables the knower to overcome all pain, misery, ignorance, and bondage. The self and the knowledge of the whole leads to freedom and wisdom. Self is described in four states of consciousness and there is no discontinuity of consciousness. The states of waking (jāgrat), dreaming (svapna) and deep sleep (susupti) and the fourth nameless state turiya. The four states misidentifies the self but they are changes in the power of awareness. The waking and dream states which can be brought together into a single category corresponding to gross and subtle bodies (Virat and Hiranyagarbha). The state of deep sleep corresponds to saguna Brahman (Brahman with attributes) or the divine (Isvara) and transcendental consciousness. Hence in the waking – dream state, the self is caught with objects, internal and external and loses sights of its own true nature as pure subject. In deep sleep, consciousness and the self is free from objects but not yet transcended to the fourth state of turiya. In the fourth state the self-transcendence that brings about the awareness of one-self as not different from Reality.
To explain the material reality, Advaita advocates that Isvara, the Brahman with attributes become personalized as deity. He is the creative Lord who calls forth worlds, maintains them, and re-absorbs them as lila, as sport or play. There is no purpose in creation. He is free with unlimited power. Creation is only apparent change and not a change in Brahman in reality. Brahman is unchangeable and immutable. The actual experience of attaining the moksha (salvation) is through self-knowledge and wisdom. Constant meditation that will help identify with self. Neti Neti, the self is not this, not this; “my,” “me,” “mine,” becomes sounds signifying nothing, Tat tvam asi – the Self is Reality. Hence “You,” and ‘me,” are not different. Cause and effects are mutually involved; the material elements (gross and subtle) that constitute physical nature are ontologically the effects of (ahmankara) (I-consciousness) and buddhi (intelligence); but their cause is saguna Brahman or consciousness associated with maya. Saguna Brahman has its own ultimate ground in pure consciousness or nirguna Brahman. De-superimposition (apavada), reconnecting the effects back into their causes, the discriminating away of all lower levels of experience (sadness, unhappiness, and sufferings) is the sword that cuts away false identifications.
Knowledge of Brahman alone is the route to liberation for Śaṅkara. The role of action (karma) and life experiences and tribulations is to purify the mind (antaḥkaranasuddhi) and make it free from likes and dislikes (raga dvesavimuktaḥ). Such a mind will be instrumental to knowledge of Brahman.
• Nonduality of subject and object As Gaudapada states, when a distinction is made between subject and object, people grasp to objects, which is samsara. By realizing one's true identity as Brahman, there is no more grasping, and the mind comes to rest.
• Nonduality of Atman and Brahman, the famous diction of Advaita Vedanta that Atman is not distinct from Brahman; the knowledge of this identity is liberating.
• Monism: there is no other reality than Brahman, that "Reality is not constituted by parts," that is, ever-changing 'things' have no existence of their own, but are appearances of the one Existent, Brahman; and that there is in reality no duality between the "experiencing self" (jiva) and Brahman, the Ground of Being.
It is referred to as Brahman. Brahman has no attributes, but it is an entity that encompasses omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), Omni benevolence (perfect goodness), immutable, divine simplicity, and eternal existence. Brahman exists in spaceless and timeless dimension in an unchanging reality amidst and beyond the realm of the universe. These qualities are personal and impersonal; variously referred to as God or the Supreme Lord in Hinduism. (One God is worshipped in various forms such as Krishna, Vishnu, Rama, Hari, Shiva, Brahma, Shakti, Kali, etc.)
The Pure Consciousness, the Brahman transcend all possible laws of physics, all dimensions and all physical realities in an infinite space that may have multiverse. That is the True Reality. There is no room for dualistic thought, such as God and living-beings having separate existence; or God and material world are two different things. There is no separate subject and object; there is no me and Almighty God; there is no you and Almighty God. There is Oneness. Brahman as a transcendental entity in a spiritual domain that defies all humanly description or characterization. As sage Yajnavalkya observed that “there is no other or better description (of Brahman) than “not this, not this” (neti neti).
Advaita is widely regarded as the pinnacle of wisdom among Hindu philosophers in post-Vedic India. It is a metaphysical system that explains physical reality in the most profound form. It is an unflinching theory and a focused system of thought that has intellectual depth and great insight that comes close to the reality reasoned within the laws of quantum physics. Erwin Schrodinger, the father of wave mechanics was a life-long Vedantin (Advaitin) according to his biographer, Walter J. Moore. Schrodinger showed the wave-particle duality of matter at its most fundamental existence. All quantum states theoretically calculated for a particle exist in spacetime until an experimental observation collapses them into one particular state. Before measurements, the particle (wave) can exists at virtually anywhere in the universe; it could be at two places at the same time. This wholesomeness of quantum reality and existence is inherent in nature.
Summary of Vedanta
The world has no separate existence apart from Brahman. The experiencing self (jīva) and the transcendental self of the Universe (ātman) are in reality identical (Oneness in Brahman). Although the individual self seems different from Brahman, like space inside a milk bottle that looks different from space outside if it. The space inside the bottle takes the shape of the bottle, but it is still part of the larger space. Plurality is experienced because of error in judgments (mithya) and ignorance (avidya). Advaita Vedanta interpret the relationship between Brahman and the world in terms of satkaryavada, the theory that effect pre-exists in the cause. The vivartavada theory observes that effect is only an apparent manifestation of its cause. Both lead to same conclusion and are rooted in the same action, the cause which is a concept of Maya, avidya (ignorance) and adhyasa. When we transform the impersonal (Brahman) being into personal being. We bring an association of the impersonal with Maya. Maya is the ontic-noetic state where limitations (upadhis) are imposed upon reality. Attachments, aversions, fears, dreams, and semi-dreams are all smeared with illusory power of Maya. All memories, cognitions, percepts, and logics are grounded in mirage, apparition and deceptive appearance. Maya appears whenever we fail to realize the oneness of the Brahman.
Advaita establishes the Oneness of Reality and this self-knowledge enables the knower to overcome all pain, misery, ignorance, and bondage. The self and the knowledge of the whole leads to freedom and wisdom. Self is described in four states of consciousness and there is no discontinuity of consciousness. The states of waking (jāgrat), dreaming (svapna) and deep sleep (susupti) and the fourth nameless state turiya. The four states misidentifies the self but they are changes in the power of awareness. The waking and dream states which can be brought together into a single category corresponding to gross and subtle bodies (Virat and Hiranyagarbha). The state of deep sleep corresponds to saguna Brahman (Brahman with attributes) or the divine (Isvara) and transcendental consciousness. Hence in the waking – dream state, the self is caught with objects, internal and external and loses sights of its own true nature as pure subject. In deep sleep, consciousness and the self is free from objects but not yet transcended to the fourth state of turiya. In the fourth state the self-transcendence that brings about the awareness of one-self as not different from Reality.
To explain the material reality, Advaita advocates that Isvara, the Brahman with attributes become personalized as deity. He is the creative Lord who calls forth worlds, maintains them, and re-absorbs them as lila, as sport or play. There is no purpose in creation. He is free with unlimited power. Creation is only apparent change and not a change in Brahman in reality. Brahman is unchangeable and immutable. The actual experience of attaining the moksha (salvation) is through self-knowledge and wisdom. Constant meditation that will help identify with self. Neti Neti, the self is not this, not this; “my,” “me,” “mine,” becomes sounds signifying nothing, Tat tvam asi – the Self is Reality. Hence “You,” and ‘me,” are not different. Cause and effects are mutually involved; the material elements (gross and subtle) that constitute physical nature are ontologically the effects of (ahmankara) (I-consciousness) and buddhi (intelligence); but their cause is saguna Brahman or consciousness associated with maya. Saguna Brahman has its own ultimate ground in pure consciousness or nirguna Brahman. De-superimposition (apavada), reconnecting the effects back into their causes, the discriminating away of all lower levels of experience (sadness, unhappiness, and sufferings) is the sword that cuts away false identifications.
Knowledge of Brahman alone is the route to liberation for Śaṅkara. The role of action (karma) and life experiences and tribulations is to purify the mind (antaḥkaranasuddhi) and make it free from likes and dislikes (raga dvesavimuktaḥ). Such a mind will be instrumental to knowledge of Brahman.