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CHAPTER 2
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ADVAITA
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CHAPTER 2
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ADVAITA
Composed several millennia ago by sages and seers in their serene hermitages, the
Upanishads have been treasured and handed down from generation to generation first as
an oral tradition and later in the form of manuscripts. The theme of the Upanishads is the
quest for absolute reality. In the thoughtful and contemplative minds of the ancient sages
of India, there arose many fundamental questions about life. There is a deep earnestness
in the profound questions that they raise and an intense aspiration to discover the truth
underlying appearances. In From the Upanishads, Wood has presented a contemporary
translation of the Upanishads into English verses which makes them accessible to the
modern reader. Selected verses are quoted here from this work to present a glimpse of the
essential aspects of the philosophy of Advaita. The Taittirya Upanishad says:
What could it mean to know complete
reality, just as it is:
beneath the various partial views
that each of us seems to perceive,
through little body, sense and mind
in a much larger universe? (From the Upanishads 200)
Scientists today ask the very same question. Physicists have been attempting to
arrive at a Grand Unified Theory by which all the fundamental forces of nature can be
seamlessly integrated and explained in terms of a single underlying force. The holy grail
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of modern physics is the search for a Theory of Everything, an all-encompassing,
coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all
aspects of the universe. This search is reminiscent of the profound question posed by the
student Shaunaka to sage Angiras in the Mundaka Upanishad:
Can knowledge of the world’s
reality be so complete
that all the many things we seem
to see are understood in it? (From the Upanishads 178)
The questions posed in the Upanishads are timeless in their appeal and relevant in
every age to anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of life. Sri Aurobindo, the great
philosopher and sage, says:
The Upanishads are a record of the deepest spiritual experiences,
documents of a revelatory and intuitive philosophy of an inexhaustible
light, power and largeness and, whether written in verse or cadenced
prose, spiritual poems of an absolute, an unfailing inspiration inevitable in
phrase, wonderful in rhythm and expression. (The Upanishads 1)
The Upanishads are an exploration into the fundamental consciousness of one’s
being. The meaning of the word ‘I’, as unfolded by the Upanishads is “simple,
unqualified awareness” (Dayananda 34). It is consciousness which makes any experience
possible, as the awareness of one’s being must precede any other experience. In
picturesque language, the Katha Upanishad describes this light of consciousness, which
illumines all experiences of life:
The sun does not shine there
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nor the moon and the stars,
nor these lightning and much less this fire.
When That shines,
everything shines after That.
By its light, all this is illuminated. (5:15)
Sri Adi Sankara selected ten among the Upanishads for writing his profound
commentaries. These ten Upanishads are Isavasya, Kena, Katha, Prasna, Mundaka,
Mandukya, Thaittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka. Through these
commentaries, Sri Adi Sankara expounded the philosophy of Advaita. Sri Aurobindo
says:
The Upanishads have been the acknowledged source of numerous
profound philosophies that flowed from it in India like her great rivers
from their Himalayan cradle fertilizing the mind and life of the people and
kept its soul alive through the long procession of the centuries, constantly
returned to for light, never failing to give fresh illumination, a fountain of
inexhaustible life-giving waters. (The Upanishads 2)
The Upanishads are the basis of not only the philosophy of Advaita (non-
dualism), but also the philosophy of Dvaita (dualism) and Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-
dualism). How does one reconcile these different interpretations of the Upanishads?
Swami Vivekananda says, “The first step is dualism. Then man gets to a higher state,
partial non-dualism. And at last, he finds he is one with the universe. Therefore, the three
do not contradict but fulfill” (Insights into Vedanta 19). The philosophical system of
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Advaita provides the conceptual framework which is useful to interpret the symbolism in
Sri Ramana’s poems.
There is a rich human element in the Upanishads as they present not only
philosophical insights but also depict the way of life in ancient India. A sage sitting in his
serene hermitage ready to teach earnest seekers of knowledge; students of varied
backgrounds living together and becoming part of the family of the sage; scenes such as
these are all vividly portrayed. The Upanishads are utterances of sages based on their
inner experiences that arose in the depths of their meditation. The Upanishads are the
concluding section of the Vedas, and therefore also termed as Vedanta. The Upanishads
present a fascinating glimpse of what lies in the deeper layers of the mind and beyond it.
Many of the Upanishads are in the form of a dialogue between a seeker of truth
and a sage. In the Chandogya Upanishad, there is a conversation between a student and a
sage. Although the student is highly learned and has mastered various branches of
learning, he still feels a sense of incompleteness. Recognizing that this lack of fulfilment
despite his enormous erudition springs from the lack of Self-knowledge, he then
approaches a sage and expresses his anguish:
What’s the use of sacred scriptures,
all these sciences and arts?
How am I to understand
the many different points of view
that learning endlessly debates?
If I don’t know quite what I am. (From the Upanishads 112)
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In the Katha Upanishad, there is an allegorical story which bears a strong
resemblance to the life of Sri Ramana. The individual is born, and one day, must surely
die. Is death total annihilation? Every thinking mind seeks to know what lies beyond the
curtain of death. Nachiketa, a courageous young boy, with an intense thirst to unravel this
mystery, fearlessly approaches the Lord of Death and asks:
When someone seems to pass away
beyond the world our senses see,
beyond the thoughts our minds conceive,
does that same person still exist?
Just how can someone dead and gone
continue to exist at all?
What in a person could exist
when mind and body have passed on? (From the Upanishads 9)
However, the Lord of Death dissuades Nachiketa from this quest, and instead
offers him a vast kingdom on earth, fabulous wealth, and a long life with the capacity to
enjoy sensory pleasures and objects of desire. Nachiketa replies:
All that we have is brought to us,
and taken back, by change and death.
It’s death that gives and death that takes;
all seeming life is ruled by death.
All is achieved by knowing death.
No object that the mind desires,
no pleasure that the mind enjoys,
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no beauty that it seems to see,
can satisfy this restless mind. (From the Upanishads 11)
With the knowledge that such pleasures are ephemeral and will not bring real
fulfilment, Nachiketa spurns all temptations and resolutely pursues his quest. The
intensity of the spirit of enquiry in the young boy transforms the Lord of Death into a
benign teacher. Western mystic poets have also pointed out the spiritual significance of
death. In his poem “Adonais”, included in the anthology titled The Oxford Book of
English Mystical Verse, Percy Bysshe Shelley writes:
The One remains, the many change and pass ;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly ;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments. Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! (131)
In the Chandogya Upanishad, Shvetaketu returns home after twelve years of
intense academic study. Shvetaketu is proud of his knowledge and accomplishments, but
is in for a surprise. His father, the sage Uddalaka, asks him:
But have you learned to question
what you do not know?
And have you ever asked yourself
how you may learn what has not been
already learned, how you may think
of something that is yet unthought,
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how we may know reality
beyond the bounds of seeming knowledge
that our partial minds conceive? (From the Upanishads 107)
Shvetaketu admits that he has never thought about the limits of conceptual
knowledge and the reality which lies beyond intellectual concepts. In all humility, he then
requests his father to teach him further. Sage Uddalaka proceeds to instruct his son
Shvetaketu in Self-knowledge.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, we come across the flamboyant and fearless
sage Yajnavalkya. Maitreyi, the sage’s beloved wife, is deeply interested in gaining that
knowledge that leads to true fulfilment. In this Upanishad, we find sage Yajnavalkya
assuming the role of a teacher to his wife. As in the other Upanishads, the main theme of
this teaching is Self-knowledge.
A person is not born just once,
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
for personality is changed;
each passing moment of our lives.
Each moment, we are born again. (From the Upanishads 78)
The Upanishads are the cornerstones of the philosophy of Advaita. The physical
body is changing every moment, as a human being moves from infancy to childhood,
adulthood and old age. Thoughts, feelings, opinions and ideas change over time. This
leads to the query if there is anything unchanging beneath the mask of changing body-
mind. Is the true Self of man hidden by the various layers of personality? The quest to
discover the real Self is the goal of this philosophy. Deriving its fundamental axioms
from the Upanishads, the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta was developed as a systematic
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enquiry into the nature of reality. In his commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad, Swami
Chinmayananda writes:
Such a great wealth of knowledge cannot be the personal property of
either an individual or a community or a nation. Vedanta is the common
wealth of man, and every full-grown man, who has started asking
questions upon the logic of creation, the goal of life, the state of
perfection, etc. has a right of free access to it, irrespective of his caste,
creed or nationality, age or stage in life. (Isavasya Upanishad 18)
According to the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, the personality of a human
being is made up of five layers, termed in Sanskrit as Pancha kosas. The five layers are:
Annamaya kosa, Pranamaya kosa, Manomaya kosa, Vijnanamaya kosa, and
Anandamaya kosa. These five layers are discussed in the Taittiriya Upanishad. The
outermost layer is the physical body. The term Annamaya means ‘made up of food’ and
Annamaya kosa refers to the physical body. The Taittiriya Upanishad says:
From food consumed, all bodies have
been born; by food they live and grow;
until they end themselves as food
for other bodies to consume. (From the Upanishads 205)
The second layer is called the Pranamaya kosa. The term prana refers to vital air.
Pranamaya kosa is the subtle layer that underlies and activates the various physiological
processes of the body such as respiration, digestion and circulation. This layer of vital
energy sustains life in the physical body. The Taittiriya Upanishad says:
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But here within each seeming self
of body made from food consumed,
there is another, subtler self
that makes the body seem alive.
This is the self of energy
that is expressed in living acts.
This self of vital energy
sustains the body’s seeming life. (From the Upanishads 205)
The third layer is the Manomaya kosa. The term manas refers to the mind.
Information about the external world is gathered by the mind through the sense organs. It
is the mind that receives and recognizes sense perceptions. Feelings and emotions arise
and disappear in the mind. It is the mind that seeks happiness. In the Kena Upanishad,
we find a student asking a sage:
What motivates mind’s changing show
of seeming objects, thoughts, desires?
What makes the mind go out to things
that seem to be outside itself?
What sends the mind, in soaring flight,
to search for freedom, happiness? (From the Upanishads 130)
The moon appears to be a luminous entity, but shines only by the borrowed light
of the Sun. The sage reveals that, so too, the mind appears to be sentient by itself, but
functions only by the reflected light of consciousness. Our experience is nothing but the
sum total of perceptions, thoughts and feelings. The Taittiriya Upanishad says:
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In everyone’s experience,
as mind’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings
come and go, they form a changing
stream of world’s appearances. (From the Upanishads 206)
The fourth layer is the Vijnanamaya kosa. This refers to the intellect which is the
seat of reasoning. The capacity for rational thought is the fundamental differentiating
factor between human beings and other creatures. This layer provides the ability to
analyze various situations and determine the correct course of action. The Taittiriya
Upanishad says:
But through this stream of passing show,
there is an underlying consciousness
that carries on; thus knowing
change and difference, comparing
and contrasting qualities:
discerning good from bad, and right
from wrong, and truth from falsity. (From the Upanishads 206)
The fifth and final layer is the Anandamaya kosa. This layer is experienced as the
peace of deep, dreamless sleep. The state of dreamless sleep is the same for everyone as
all differences vanish. The Taittiriya Upanishad says:
Within each personality,
it’s the essential, living core
of unconditioned happiness
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that cannot change or pass away. (From the Upanishads 208)
The Upanishads explore not only the waking state of a human being, but also the
dream state and the deep sleep state. An individual experiences the physical body and the
physical world in the waking state and is unaware of it in the dream state and the deep
sleep state. All innate tendencies and psychological impressions lie dormant in deep sleep
but manifest once again in the waking and dream states. The inner instrument, the mind,
is active in both the waking state and the dream state. Based on the function it is
performing, the very same inner instrument may be given four different terms: mind,
intellect, memory and ego. Mind has the ability to imagine, project and doubt; the
intellect has the ability to analyze, discriminate, reason and decide; memory is the store-
house of past experiences, and the ego is the sense of being a separate individual. In
Prasna Upanishad, the student Gargya approaches sage Pippalada with the following
question:
What common, living principle
continues on, through changing states
of waking sense and dreaming mind,
into the peace of dreamless sleep? (From the Upanishads 168)
In the dream state, the individual experiences a world projected by the mind that
is regarded as being real as long as the dream lasts. It is only upon waking up that the
unreality of the dream world is clearly understood. In the state of deep sleep, devoid of
dream, neither the physical body nor the mind are experienced. Therefore one does not
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experience either a physical world or a dream world in this state. The Kaushitaki
Upanishad says,
In depth of sleep, no mind appears
conceiving different seeming things;
and mind’s attention does not direct
living energy from consciousness
to different seeming objects
in some world that mind conceives. (From the Upanishads 153)
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, there is an account of a philosophical debate
held in the court of King Janaka of Videha. Gargi, herself an erudite scholar of
philosophy, conducts the discussion. In The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran provides a
gist of this debate.
“In what is space itself woven, warp and woof? Tell me, Yajnavalkya.”
Sage Yajnavalkya replies, “The sages call it Akshara, the Imperishable.”
He elaborates, “The Imperishable is the seer, Gargi, though unseen; the
hearer, though unheard; the thinker, though unthought, the knower, though
unknown. Nothing other than the Imperishable can see, hear, think or
know. It is in the Imperishable that space is woven, warp and woof” (41).
It is common knowledge that all the objects of the Universe exist in
space. Going a step further, Gargi poses an intriguing question to sage Yajnavalkya:
Sage Yajnavalkya states that space itself exists in consciousness, which is
imperishable. The very concept of space requires the presence of the mind, which itself is
supported by consciousness. The concept of time is also contained in consciousness. The
Katha Upanishad describes the nature of the real Self:
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The self within each mind and heart
is nothing else but consciousness.
It is not born. It does not die.
It does not come from anything;
does not give on to anything.
It simply is: before all time,
without beginning, change or end.
All thought of time depends on it;
but it does not depend on time,
and time does not apply to it. (From the Upanishads 13)
In every human being, there are two aspects: consciousness and the five layers of
personality. The Upanishads state that the essence of one’s being is the consciousness
underlying the five layers of the personality. The Svetasvatara Upanishad says, “As oil in
sesame seeds, as butter in curds, as water in underground springs, as fire in wood, even so
this Self is perceived in the self” (1:16). In Atma Bodha, Sri Adi Sankara writes, “One
should, through discrimination, separate the pure and inmost Self from the sheaths by
which it is covered, as one separates a rice-kernel from the covering husk by striking it
with a pestle” (144). Evolution and change are for the layers of the personality. Only that
which does not disappear in time can be considered as absolutely real. The Taittiriya
Upanishad says:
What’s always true is always real,
beneath all mere appearances.
It is that common principle
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which all appearances must share,
beneath their seeming differences. (From the Upanishads 200)
This is the litmus test for absolute reality. Anything that is transient is only
relatively real. The Upanishads declare that the Atma is immutable and indestructible.
Therefore the Atma is indicated as Sat, which means absolute existence. The Atma is not
an inert substance. The very nature of Atma is pure awareness. The Atma is therefore also
indicated as Chit, which means consciousness. The Chandogya Upanishad says, “Self
shines undimmed as consciousness, the light that lights all other lights” (103). Pure,
unconditioned awareness, the real ‘I’, is the substratum of all the five layers of a human
being. This self-luminous essence of one’s being remains unchanged throughout the
course of all experience, as perceptions, thoughts and feelings come and go. The
Taittiriya Upanishad says:
It is the changeless base from which
appearances seem to arise,
on which they stand, and where they go
as they dissolve back in their ground
of self-illuminating light.
Thus it is consciousness that is
the true identity of self. (From the Upanishads 214)
The five layers of the personality are only vestures adorning the Atma. These are
activated only due to the presence of the Atma. The Atma cannot be referred to as an
object or as a second or third person. ‘Self’ written with a uppercase ‘S’ indicates that it
refers to Atma, the essence and ground of being. The Atma, the Self, is always the subject
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and never an object of experience. Pure awareness is unchanging witness of all changing
experiences. A human being, due to the false identification with the vestures veiling the
Atma, experiences life as a mixture of pain and pleasure. However, the intrinsic nature of
the Atma is pure bliss. The Atma is happiness unalloyed with any trace of sorrow, and this
aspect is indicated as Ananda. Thus, the three essential aspects of the Atma are Sat
(absolute existence), Chit (pure consciousness) and Ananda (unconditioned
happiness).
The ground is what Self really is,
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
continuing through seeming change:
the source and goal of everything,
pure knowledge, unmixed happiness. (From the Upanishads 79)
It is generally accepted that for every effect, there must be a cause. Usually, it is
observed that an effect will have two causes: a material cause and an efficient cause. For
example, wood is the material cause of a wooden table. The carpenter who crafted the
table is the efficient cause. The entire Universe can be regarded as an effect. What is the
underlying cause for this effect? The philosophy of Advaita states that the material cause
as well as the efficient cause of the Universe is nothing but pure consciousness. The
Katha Upanishad says:
Just as one common principle
of underlying energy
is there throughout the universe,
appearing in the different forms
that are so differently perceived
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in different objects and events;
so too, one common principle
of underlying consciousness
is here throughout experience. (From the Upanishads 30)
In Sanskrit, the mystic experience is called Samadhi. The sages discovered that
the mystic experience can be reached through meditation. The experience of Samadhi is
the pinnacle of meditation when all duality between subject and object vanishes. Only
pure consciousness remains. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
The timeless state that is achieved
when meditation stills the mind;
the state between successive thoughts,
where previous thought has come to end
and further thought has not begun,
here, in this unconditioned state,
Self shines unmixed. (From the Upanishads 82)
The essence of the philosophy of Advaita is stated in the Upanishads as
Mahavakyas, which literally means profound or important statements. The first
Mahavakya is ‘Prajnanam Brahma’, declared in the Aitareya Upanishad (3.3) of the Rig
Veda. This statement declares that consciousness is the fabric by which the entire
universe is woven. The Aitareya Upanishad says:
God, all the gods,
the elements of which the world is made,
creatures and things of every kind,
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however large or small,
however born or formed,
including all that breathes, walks, flies,
and all that moves or does not move.
All these are known by consciousness,
and take their stand in consciousness.
Coming after consciousness,
the whole world stands in consciousness.
Consciousness is all there is. (From the Upanishads 3)
The second Mahavakya is ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ declared in the Chandogya Upanishad
(6.8.7) of the Sama Veda. This statement means ‘That Thou Art’ which instructs the
disciple of the essential oneness of the individual being and the supreme reality. Sage
Uddalaka teaches his son and disciple, Shvetaketu:
Pure consciousness, the essence of
each mind and heart, is all the world’s
reality. That is the truth.
That is what you really are. (From the Upanishads 110)
The third Mahavakya is ‘Ayam Atma Brahma’, declared in the Mandukya
Upanishad (1.2) of the Atharvana Veda. This declaration means, ‘This Self is all reality’.
This Mahavakya instructs the seeker to turn his gaze inwards and discover his own
essential nature. In several Eastern religions, the sound ‘Om’ is considered sacred. The
Mandukya Upanishad explains the mystic symbolism behind the sound symbol ‘Om’:
In this unchanging consciousness
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where all appearances dissolve,
no separate ego can remain
and happiness is realized;
for Self and world are known as one.
‘Om’ is thus non-duality:
where truth but merges self in Self. (From the Upanishads 199)
The fourth Mahavakya is ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
(1.4.10) of the Yajur Veda. This is a declaration of oneness with Brahman born of the
experience of the seeker when he completely transcends his identification with the
limited personality. It is consciousness that is essence of each person’s individuality. In
all the various feelings, thoughts, perceptions, desires and actions, it is consciousness that
is expressed. And yet, consciousness is impersonal and transcends the personality. It is
the same in all of us. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says:
In all the multiplicity
of actions, persons, creatures, things,
throughout this many-seeming world,
the Self is one and one alone.
All is reached, by knowing this. (From the Upanishads 49)
The declaration that the Universe is only a manifestation of an indivisible,
underlying consciousness is termed as ‘Advaita’, which literally means ‘not two’. The
Upanishads thus present a vision of non-duality. Sri Aurobindo states:
These supreme and all-embracing truths, these visions of oneness of self
and a universal divine being are cast into brief and monumental phrases
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which bring them at once before the soul’s eye and make them real and
imperative to its aspiration and experience. (The Upanishads 4)
Describing the Self or pure consciousness in the language of paradox, the
Isavasya Upanishad says:
The Atman moves and
It moves not;
It is far and It is near;
It is within all this, and
It is also outside all this. (Isavasya Upanishad 5)
The Taittiriya Upanishad says, “Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma” (2:1).
Through this phrase, the Upanishad indicates the nature of reality as absolute existence-
consciousness, beyond the limitations of time and space. The Chandogya Upanishad
says:
Forms and names and qualities
divide the world that mind perceives,
and seem to show us separate things.
What are these separate-seeming things?
They all arise in consciousness,
continue on in consciousness,
and come to end in consciousness.
They cannot rise, continue on
or end, apart from consciousness.
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All that they are is consciousness. (From the Upanishads 108)
It is this verse of the Chandogya Upanishad that contains the famous declaration
“Sarvam Kalvidam Brahma” (3.14.1)
To realize the Self within is to realize the infinite Self. … In the realm of
experience, if a meditator apprehends the Self in him, he at once
experiences the omnipresence of the Self. As long as pot exists, the pot-
space is seen distinct from the space around. Once the pot is broken, the
pot-space itself becomes the unbounded space in the universe. (969)
which means “All this is consciousness”. The
quintessence of the Upanishads is contained in the Bhagavad Gita. In his commentary on
the Bhagavad Gita, Swami Chinmayananda writes:
The central message of the philosophy of Advaita is succinctly stated by Sri Adi
Sankara in his famous composition Vivekachudamani: “Brahma satyam jagat mithya,
jivo brahmaiva naparah”. This declaration states that consciousness is the fundamental
reality; the Universe and all living beings are only a manifestation of the underlying
reality.
This truth is immanent in all
The philosophy of Advaita does not reject the world as something non-existent.
According to this philosophy, it is only the perception that the world consists of separate
and isolated forms that is an illusion. The absolute reality is neither distant nor distinct
from the individual and the world, for it is also immanent as the substratum of the
Universe. The Kaushitaki Upanishad says:
that is perceived: as that which is,
unmixed with mere appearances
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attributed by sense and mind.
This truth also transcends whatever
is perceived: as that which knows,
as unconditioned consciousness. (From the Upanishads 136)
This philosophy is not opposed to the worship of a personal God, but advocates
worship performed with the proper understanding of the underlying inner principle. The
Shvetashvatara Upanishad says:
All faces, heads and bodies are
mere instruments of consciousness,
found here in every person’s heart.
It is the inner principle
of spirit that pervades the world;
and thus, it’s worshipped as ‘the Lord’.
It is the base of changeless light
on which is founded order, justice,
goodness, harmony, and guidance
towards purity and truth. (From the Upanishads 237)
The separation between one person and another, one form and another is merely
at the superficial level. In the words of Swami Vivekananda, “This separation does not
exist, it is not real. It is merely apparent, the limitations imposed by the five instruments
of knowledge man is bound with – the five sensory organs. In the heart of things, there is
Unity still” (The Complete Works: Vol. 2. 125). Through spiritual striving, a human being
can realize the oneness of his own self with the absolute pure consciousness not merely
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intellectually but as a direct, intimate experience. The Mundaka Upanishad says,
“Whoever realizes Self, attains to purity of truth” (191). Advaita, or this unity, is not
only the central teaching of the Upanishads, but also the direct experience of the mystics
of all traditions and religions. In his poem, Jalaluddin Rumi expresses his mystic
experience thus:
With Thy sweet soul this soul of mine
Hath mixed as water doth with wine.
Who can the wine and water part,
Or me and Thee when we combine
Thou art become my greater self;
Small bounds no more can me confine.
Thou hast my being taken on,
And shall not I now take on Thine? (Easwaran 214)
By meditating deeply on the nature of the Self, it is possible for the mind to
discover the underlying unity. In Sanskrit, the mystic experience that arises when the
mind becomes perfectly still is termed as Nirvikalpa Samadhi. In the Prasna Upanishad,
the metaphor of a river merging into the ocean is used to provide a hint of the mystic
experience of oneness with the absolute.
All flowing rivers are just water,
like the sea to which they come.
But in the sea where they all join,
their separate-seeming names and forms
are all dissolved; and water is
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then manifest, just as it is:
in its unconditioned state
beneath all seeming name and form. (From the Upanishads 175)
The mystic can be compared to a river that has merged in the ocean. Just as the
river loses its separate identity, the apparent individual identity is dissolved in Absolute
Being. In this dissolution of the personal identity, the mystic attains the vision of oneness
of the entire cosmos. Mystic poets give a hint of “the reality that is eternally underlying
all things” and it is through the “enchantment of their writing that some rays gleam from
the light which is supernal” (The Oxford Book 1). In his poem “Essay on Man”,
Alexander Pope writes:
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent. (The Oxford Book 84)
Although the loss of a personal self may appear to be frightening, the mystic sees
this not as a loss, but as the greatest gain. In his commentary on the Mundaka Upanishad,
Swami Vivekananda describes this state:
Then all delusions cease, all miseries vanish; all fears come to an end
forever. Birth goes way and with it death; pains fly, and with them fly
away pleasures; earths vanish, and with them vanish heavens; bodies
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vanish, and with them vanishes the mind also. That moment all the knots
of the heart are cut asunder … the whole universe disappears, as it were –
it becomes transfigured into one infinite, unbreakable, unchangeable
existence and we find we are one with that existence. (33)
In this experience, one realizes that the indivisible pure consciousness alone is the
substratum of all that exists. In the mystic experience, the mind is like a bucket immersed
in a well of bliss. However, just as the bucket can be drawn out of the well once again,
the mind with its habitual tendencies is drawn out once again by the rope of mental
activity. After non-dual reality is experienced in the depths of meditation, the mind
returns to the perception of apparent plurality. Therefore, the student asks his teacher in
the Chandogya Upanishad:
How may such knowledge be applied,
in practice, to a person’s life;
when truth is known but mind returns
to face the seeming world again? (From the Upanishads 114)
The teacher replies that only when the truth is clearly seen in every experience,
that all experience is simply the play of consciousness, then one is established in this
knowledge. Therefore, contemplation plays an important role in comprehending and fully
assimilating the discovery made in the depths of meditation.
When truth is effortlessly known
in every sight and every sound, in each
perception, thought and feeling;
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knowledge then has been applied. (From the Upanishads 115)
Such a perception is attained through mananam, which means contemplation on
reality, and niddhidyasanam, which means abidance in reality. The Shvetashvatara
Upanishad says:
From contemplating that, from joining
into it, from truth appearing
more and more just as it is,
the world’s delusions cease at last
and are dissolved in peace and rest. (From the Upanishads 231)
In Wanderings in the Himalayas, Swami Tapovanam writes, “All will admit that
joy is to be found in peace, and not in the agitations of the mind. … The unique state of
serene peace can be attained only in a non-dual state” (74). Some may wonder how Self-
realization can benefit humanity. Sri Ramana says:
A radio transmission is done from one point but its effect can be felt all
over the world. Those who would like to benefit from it can do so.
Similarly, the Self-realization of the Jnani spreads everywhere and
whosoever wants can tune into it. This is not a lesser service. (The Power
of the Presence 231)
The mystic may be externally active, and yet abide in a state of inner peace and
rest. In his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, Eknath Easwaran quotes the words of St.
Catherine of Genoa to indicate this state:
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The state of the this soul is then a feeling of such utter peace and
tranquillity that it seems to her that her heart, and her bodily being, and all
both within and without, is immersed in an ocean of utmost peace … And
she is so full of peace that though she press her flesh, her nerves, her
bones, no other thing comes forth from them than peace. (37)
Once the essential oneness behind all apparent diversity is clearly cognized, the
search for God culminates in the awareness of divinity in every tiny bit of the universe.
The Isha Upanishad says:
It’s here and now: in every sight,
in every sound and smell and taste,
in every touch, in every thought
and feeling, in each mind and heart.
It is the only thing that’s known
immediately; because it is
the living centre of each heart:
the knowing self we each call ‘I’. (From the Upanishads 156)
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is a compilation of conversations with Sri
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Sri Ramakrishna says:
A man cannot live on the roof a long time. He comes down again. Those
who realize Brahman in Samadhi come down also and find that it is
Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings. In the
musical scale there are the notes sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha and ni; but one
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cannot keep one’s voice on ‘ni’ a long time. The ego does not vanish
altogether. The man coming down from Samadhi perceives that it is
Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings. This
is known as vijnana. (55)
Complete understanding of the mystic experience dawns through contemplation.
The Yoga Vasishtha says, “He whom the world does not fear, who is not afraid of the
world, and who is free of passion, intolerance and fear is said to be liberated while living”
(4:6). The illusion of a separate and limited self is transcended through contemplation. In
his commentary on the Kaivalya Upanishad, Swami Chinmayananda explains this state:
Just as on awakening from a dream we realize that all the objects that we
saw in dream were nothing but the expressions of our own mind, so too,
one who is experiencing the Self realizes that the entire world-of-objects
that he had been seeing before have all merged back into the Self. And
thereafter, when a Man-of-realization looks out into the world, no doubt,
he perceives the world of plurality, but he also experiences the play of the
same Self in and through each one of them. (Kaivalyopanishad 42)
Nothing is ever considered as separate from one’s real Self, the Atman, which is
pure consciousness. This state is also called Sahaja Samadhi, the natural or effortless
state of abidance in Self-knowledge at all times and in all circumstances. The Buddha
calls this state Nirvana. The Dhammapada is a text which contains the summary of the
Buddha’s teachings. In his introduction to the translation of this text, Eknath Easwaran
writes:
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Siddhartha slipped into that profound stillness in which thought stops and
the distinctions of a separate personality dissolve. In this profound state,
he remained immersed … The Buddha remained at that spot for four
weeks or more, immersing himself in nirvana over and over. ... He had not
only attained nirvana, he was established in it – aware of life’s unity not
only during meditation but at every moment, awake or asleep. Now he
could help others to make the same crossing. (27)
Terms such as Enlightenment, Liberation, Self-realization, Moksha, Mukti and
Nirvana are all used to indicate this state of cessation of suffering and abidance in peace.
In his poem “The Light of Asia”, Sir Edwin Arnold writes:
Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins
Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes
Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths
And lives recur. He goes
Unto NIRVANA. He is one with Life. (The Oxford Book 268)
Nirvana is not a posthumous condition to be attained only after death, but a state
of peace which can be attained here and now. In Buddhism and Christianity in the Light
of Hinduism, Arthur Osborne writes:
Nirvana is man’s swarupa or true state and is merely covered over by the
veil which in Hinduism is called ignorance, in Buddhism suffering and in
Christianity original sin, the veil of the ego. When this is removed,
Nirvana remains. … Sai Baba, an Indian saint of the late nineteenth and
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early twentieth century who had both Hindu and Muslim followers and
taught each in terms of their own religion, explained this as follows:
“Ignorance conceals the pre-existent knowledge just as water plants cover
over the surface of a pond. Clear away the plants and you have the water.
You don’t have to create it; it is already there.” (126)
Both the Upanishads and the philosophical poems of Sri Ramana are an
exploration of the inner Self of a human being. The Upanishads are philosophical poems
composed millennia ago by sages and seers, while the poems of Sri Ramana were
composed in the twentieth century. Sri Ramana received no formal philosophical training
but only expressed his own experience through his poems. Yet, there is a remarkable
degree of convergence between the insights communicated by the Upanishads and the
works of Sri Ramana. The Advaita Bodha Deepika, an important philosophical text
stresses the need for direct experience of reality:
To know from the shastras (scriptures) that the Self is Being-Knowledge-
Bliss amounts to indirect knowledge and cannot be the same as
experience. For the Self is the inmost being of the individual or the
consciousness witnessing the five sheaths; it is Brahman. This not being
realized, a superficial knowledge is all that is gained by reading the
shastras. It is only indirect knowledge. (46)
This fact was sometimes lost sight of during the course of centuries. In modern
times, it is Sri Ramana who has once again restored the emphasis on the mystic
experience as the basis for the philosophy of Advaita. Carl Gustav Jung, one of the
pioneers of the field of psychology, writes:
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What we find in the life and teachings of Sri Ramana is the purest of
India: with its breath of world-liberated and liberating humanity, it is a
chant of millenniums. This melody is built up on a single great motif,
which in a thousand colourful reflexes, rejuvenates itself within the Indian
spirit. (Swaminathan 130)
Alan Jacobs writes that while Sri Sankara “played the pivotal role in the
development of philosophical thought in India” based on the Upanishads and occupies a
unique place in history “as the great consolidator of the teachings of Advaita”, it is to “the
wholly exemplary life and teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi that we owe the
contemporary interest in Advaita” (8).