Advaita Vedanta is a dominant Indian philosophy that removes the idea of ‘spirituality’ inherent in Hinduism and other organised religions, and shifts the focus of attention towards the single-dimension of “Self”. The goal of Advaita is to help guide aspirants along the path of self-knowledge without being muddled by religious dogma. However, the in-depth concepts can be somewhat complex.
Vedanta was inspired by the principle philosophy of ancient Hindu traditions, which, as far as we know, started with the Rig Veda. The core of these existing philosophies are probably much older. The teachings were expanded by Adi Shankara in the early 8th Century before being improved and promulgated into western thinking at the end of the 18th Century by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
Vedanta itself consists of several schools, but it is Advaita that is widely credited with expounding the highest views on Reality. The principles within the conceptual framework attempts to explain the fundamental teachings enunciated by the Prasthantrayi, the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita.
The purpose of Advaita Vedanta is to teach aspirants the existential problems of life and help them transcend the “illusion” and limitations of the physical world. The ultimate aim is to overcome suffering and find inner peace. In this respect, Vedanta is focused on the Universe, the Individual and relinquishing the ignorance of that keeps is bound to the material world.
Attachment to the physical world is qualified by individuals who are driven by passion and desire, overcome by emotions and tempted into selfish motives and mundane acts. By doing so, says Advaita, we become chained to timeless karma, bound by destructive forces that weaken our quality of life. The goal is to break the cycle of karma and experience moksha, the liberation of the mind.
Brahman’s dream
The “grand illusion” of the world is known as Brahman’s dream, or Maya. Hinduism, and modern science, classifies the world as an illusion because of our tendency to perceive our experiences as reality rather than experiencing reality through the one ‘Self.” Vedanta questions whether our experience of reality is actually Reality.
Brahman is the manifestation of all things. For all intents and purposes, it has no beginning or end and is found in everything throughout nature. Some people consider Brahman to be the equivalent to God in western traditions. Others would say Brahman is the Universal Mind that produces energy and matter that creates the Universe and everything in it.
With the creation of humanity came the simultaneous creation of jnana – knowledge that is inseparable from the total experience of reality, that which continuously connects the soul – the atman – with the Universal Mind of Brahman. Advaita says that it is only in this state of being that we experience divine reality.
The Bhagavad Gita asks, “What is knowledge.” Krishna gives us the answer by explaining it is “to know the field and the knower of the field, that is the real knowledge.” In other words, Krishna tells us to know what is the conscious mind and what is the unconscious mind. The conscious mind controls conscious thoughts, but the conscious mind has the power and the control to program the unconscious to feed the conscious.
Advaita therefore tells us to know your mind. Observe your thoughts, feeling and actions as this triumvirate essentially programs your habitual behaviors. Vedanta goes on to explain there are two kinds of knowledge; higher and lower. It is here that we must address the core teachings of Vedanta Advaita; dualism and non-dualism.
Is reality duality?
The law of polarity explains that everything that exists has two polar opposites. Religions say the same thing, but they often forget to mention there is a spectrum of energies between the positive and negative poles. It is along the spectrum that we must find a balance. In essence, the goal is to transcend the duality of illusion in order to “be at one” with Brahman.
The difference between duality and non-duality is knowledge of the ultimate Truth. Advaita describes it as the relationship between the soul (atman) and the universal self (brahman). When individuals consider ourselves as ‘I’, we may recognise our inner soul, but have no connection, and therefore no knowledge of Brahman. Thus our separation from Brahman means we experience the duality of maya.
The classic example given by Vedantists is the illusion of a rope appearing as a snake. When the mind initially recognises a snake, the central nervous system goes into panic mode and shuts down to protect the individual from emotional harm. Chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol are released in the brain to spur us into survival mode.
Yet when the mind realises the rope is not a snake, the body can relax and the mind can become calm. However, by this time toxic chemicals are already released into the body. In people that suffer stress on a daily basis – almost everybody – the body takes longer to recover and illnesses develop.
In contrast, when the individual Mind is connected with the Universal Mind, you see a rope as a rope. There is no cause for alarm and panic stations are not activated in the body. In the world of non-duality, the individual soul becomes the atman-brahman and co-exist as one, communicate as one and experience the true Reality. Brahman is the only Truth.
So why do we experience illusion and not Truth. The answer to that is because the unconscious mind is programmed with beliefs, attitudes and views of the world that are not yours, but those of other people, namely your parents, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, and media providers.
We experience the world through our five senses which sends information to the brain and is stored in the unconscious. The mind and all its contents typically come from the outside, thus are aspects of lower knowledge. In this regard, sense perception is liable to error and more often than not can be a destructive force.
Students of Vedanta use sense perceptions under the guidance of reason. They question what is real and what is not, what did they do to cause an experience and why did it happen. This is the path to higher knowledge which comes from within. This is the process of self-realisation that Advaita promotes. The path to enlightenment.