Tag Archives: Advaita

Waking Up (Part 3)

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Part 3 of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

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Other Religions and Non-duality

It is not at all obvious why ‘religion’ should be so disparaged. He recognizes “the needless confusion and harm that inevitably arise from the doctrines of faith-based religions”. The literal meaning of ‘religion’ is ‘joining back’, from the Latin ‘re ligare’. Its essential aim (and, I suggest, one rather more worthy) has nothing to do with psychology or personal happiness but with the nature of reality itself. It is difficult to understand how someone could place more value on a drug-induced experience than upon use of reason applied to scriptural revelation.

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Waking Up (Part 2)

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Part 2 of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

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Science

Another problem which adds to the book’s confusion is the attempt to utilize science, supposedly to improve upon or correct the ancient (and therefore bound to be mistaken) views of the original philosophies (be these Advaita or Buddhism). Harris explains that “Throughout this book, I discuss certain classical spiritual phenomena, concepts, and practices in the context of our modern understanding of the human mind.” Why would one want to do this? It is missing the point completely. The truth cannot be found in the mind; rather the mind is a tool with which we may discover the truth.

I explain in my article ‘Science and Consciousness’ that science can never explain the nature of ‘I’ because I am the subject, doing the investigating. The subject can never objectify himself. It is true that I can investigate both the body and the mind because I am neither of these. But this also means that understanding the human mind is not going to help in an ‘investigation’ of spirituality; it is simply not relevant to ‘who I really am’. Furthermore, if Harris is ‘talking about the nature of experience itself’, he is not talking about ‘I’, since I am the experiencer. Finding out about household electric light circuits and how they work tells me nothing at all about the one who operates the light switch.

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Eight Upanishads (Topic-wise) Part 2

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Part 1

Chapter 1 General Introduction

1-2 PramAna  VedAnta accepts six sources of knowledge called PramAna. Direct perception: Sense organs directly perceive and give information. Inference: It is an indirect knowledge of something not in the range of direct perception. There is knowledge of fire when smoke is seen. Presumption: Knowledge about something in the past by directly perceiving something different in the present. On seeing a wet street in the morning, there is knowledge of rain in the night. Comparison: It is knowledge of something derived by comparison. There is knowledge of a wild buffalo in the forest because it resembles the buffalo seen in the village. Non-cognition: Knowledge of the absence of something by non-cognition. Seeing a chair in a room gives the knowledge of the absence of an elephant in the room. Testimony: It is knowledge derived from written or spoken words. I read a Physics book Physics to get the knowledge of laws of motion.

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Q. 548 – God and germs

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Q: It is said that God is everywhere. So God is very much in the human body as well. He is in every cell/atom of a human body. My question is: what is the position /status of God, who is within the body, when  every cell/atom becomes infected? Is infection more powerful than God?

A: God is not ‘in the  human body’. The human body is name and form of Brahman. Similarly, bacteria are name and form of Brahman. There is ONLY Brahman in reality.

At the level of appearance (world etc.), God (Īśvara ) provides an interim explanation of the laws that govern the seeming creation.  One of these laws is that bacteria can infect bodies and affect their working, even to the extent of ‘killing’ them. But God, bodies and bacteria do not exist as separate entities in reality. They are all Brahman.

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Advaita in the Vedas – meaning of samudra

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We don’t have to dive deep into Advaita to come across the imagery of a drop of water and the ocean or many rivers flowing back to the sea. Whilst it is more prominent now, we find the same idea in classic literature,

Just as flowing rivers go down into the sea,
Leaving name and form behind,
The one who knows, freed from name and form,
Reaches the highest Supreme Self.
— Mundaka Upanishad [1]

The meaning is clear — the rivers are likened to name and form and the sea to the Supreme Self. When Advaita is realised, there is the vanishing of name and form, which is the rivers flowing back to the sea. This is very common imagery for illustrating the truth. What we may not know is that it also features in the Vedas. Continue reading →

Advaita in the Vedas – Rig Veda 1.115.1

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The imagery of the Sun features throughout the teachings of Advaita. It appears multiple times in the Upanishads and is first found in the Vedas. But what is its significance and how does it relate to the ultimate reality of Brahman? 

The meaning Rig Veda gives us couldn’t be clearer, 

The Sun is the Self of the whole world both moving and non-moving and rises with its own effulgence in heaven, the earth and atmosphere. [1]

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Advaita Gurus and Critics – part 9

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Analysis and Interpretation
by Prof. Phillip Charles Lucas

<Read Part 8>

In the remainder of this article, I analyze and interpret the criticisms of NTMA teachers and teachings using theoretical frames drawn from the sociology of religions, history of North American religions, and ongoing scholarly conversations concerning adaptations and distortions that occur when Hindu traditions move from their homeland to the cultural matrices of North America.

On one level, the spread of Modern Advaita (both NTMA and TMA) gurus and organizations is simply a manifestation of the entrepreneurial spirit that long has characterized the North American religious landscape. In a sense these teachers are engaged in niche franchising of the Modern Advaita message. This is the case because most teachers active in North American Modern Advaita circles today spent time as disciples of one or another guru from either the TMA or NTMA orbits.

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Advaita in the Vedas – Rig Veda 10.125.8

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Rig Veda 10.125.8 is unique as it is one of the rare occasions in the Vedas where a mantra is spoken in first-person. Such mantras are categorised as directly relating to the Self, where the worshipper is identical with the deity being worshipped and the illusion of separation is seen through.

In Rig Veda 10.125.8, it is declared that,

I breathe forth like the wind, giving form to all created worlds. Beyond the heaven, beyond this earth, so vast am I in greatness.

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Advaita in the Vedas – Gayatri Mantra

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The Gayatri mantra is one of the most famous, chanted by millions of people every day and heralded for many reasons. But what makes it so significant? Two explanations are its Vedic origins and the meaning of the mantra itself — 

That greatest Savitri is the light of the shining one we meditate on which illuminates our intellect.

The mantra, which is ‘tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat’, first appears in Rig Veda (3.62.10). When it is chanted, it is preceded by Om and the mahavyahriti: bhur bhuvah svah. They symbolise the three regions — earth, atmosphere and heaven — while Om is their source, beyond them. Similarly, the Chandogya Upanishad says about Gayatri as the personification of the mantra,

Gayatri is all this, whatever exists. Speech is the Gayatri: speech sings (gai) and protects (trai) all this that exists. [1]

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Advaita Gurus and Critics – part 5

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by Prof. Phillip Charles Lucas

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Theme Three: Insufficient Grounding in Vedanta Traditions

A third theme criticizes NTMA teachers for their lack of grounding in the Sanskrit language and Advaita scriptures, and their concomitantly premature assumption of the guru role. TMA proponents see this grounding as essential for any teacher who is to be an effective agent of Advaita awakening. Without it, the Advaita system of self-realization gets watered down, key Sanskrit terms are misinterpreted, and NTMA teaching becomes little more than a psychological massage for stressed-out Westerners.

Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, a frequent TMA commentator on various Advaita-oriented discussion forums, bluntly summarizes the TMA position: “In ‘Advaita’ you get enlightenment only through study of Upanishads and other Vedic scriptures. All other religious practices including meditations etc. are considered at best a preparation of mind to understand the message of Upanishads and at worst superfluous.” [Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, “Watering down Advaita: Westerners Corrupt Hindu Terminology!” Sarlo’s Guru Rating Service, at <http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Yadvaita.htm>, accessed 6 May 2013. The first entry is written by Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, but the whole seems to be Waite’s.]

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