VEDANTA

HEART OF HINDUISM
Book: Hans Torwesten

Review: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

Part 3

Advaita: The Philosophy of Non-Duality

One of the two philosophical concepts ‘Dvaita’ and ‘Advaita’ (from the Sanskrit roots for
two and not-two) or duality and non-duality respectively, Advaita stands for the ultimate
‘oneness’ of reality, the main concern of the Advaita School of Vedanta.

The ‘Vedantin’ lives in the ‘One’, sees only the ‘One’, or more precisely that which is
‘non-two’.

The Great Shankara

Traveling the length and breadth of India, Shankara preached his doctrine (Advaita
Vedanta) and founded an important order of Hindu Monks whose monasteries continue
to be strongholds of Advaita Vedanta to this day and who enjoy great authority among
the people.

Shankara restored confidence among Hindus in their religion by presenting them (and
the rest of the world) with an imposing spiritual edifice which accommodated practically
everyone’s belief: at the everyday level the particular belief in many deities; above this
the belief in one ‘Ishvara’, creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe; and above
this, Ishvara transcended by the knowledge of the absolute, supra-personal Brahman –
which, through ‘Maya’ appears on the relative plane as the personal God and the world
of multiple phenomena.
Maya, The Indian Sphinx

The term ‘Maya’ plays a pivotal role in Shankara’s philosophical system, so much so
that it is often called ‘Maya-vada’ (Maya teaching); and since Shankara’s philosophy
continued to prevail and was identified with Vedanta, the words Vedanta and Maya
came to be inseparably linked in people’s minds.

To this great Vedanta philosopher the entire world of phenomena – from the tiniest
blade of grass to the creator-god – is ‘Maya’. According to him such concepts as
‘positive’ and ‘negative’ are themselves based on Maya, as are all other perceived pairs
of opposites, all duality. It is because of this mysterious power of Brahman that the one
appears as the many, that is, the One Self or Atman as innumerable living entities.

Shankara knew himself to be in full possession of absolute truth and loudly proclaimed it
everywhere he went. One detects no hesitation in his voice; he always speaks with
great authority. But although in doing so he made full use of his keen intellect, it is
evident that he derived his certainty not so much from mental exertion as from his own
profound spiritual experience of what the scriptures reveal.

The mind brightened by enlightenment serves merely as a lamp for others on the way to
liberation – it is never used as an instrument for explaining the world and its
phenomena.

Occasionally, almost as a concession, Shankara refers to Brahman as the very basis for
the phenomenal world. Without this basis, without the existence of an absolute reality,
one could not speak of an illusion about it.

Maya and Evil

Evil, or for that matter Maya, is not real in the sense that absolute being is, but at the
same time not totally unreal. It is there, one has to reckon and grapple with it.

For the Vedantin, good and evil are part of this ‘Maya-world’, consisting as it does of all
kinds of dualisms, of so many pairs of opposites. It is precisely duality and multiplicity –
sources of eternal dueling and discords – he wants to eliminate. He wants the entire
universe as we see it to disappear – to make room for the ‘One’, which until then is
concealed by the many.

Shankara, in order not to fall back into the trap of dualism, also invests Maya with what
he calls ‘the Power of the Lord’ – thereby surely intending to make it clear that Maya is
no evil power in opposition to God – or to that matter any neutral, independently existing
reality.
The Maya Concept

According to the Vedanta teaching, Maya can obscure and conceal as well as project.
Its concealing aspect is associated primarily with the guna of ‘tamas’ (ignorance,
darkness, inertia), its projecting aspect with ‘rajas’ (activity). Yet it is not that Maya at
one time only conceals, at another only projects. Rather, it is precisely the paradoxical
nature of Maya that through its very revealing it conceals and through its masks it
reveals. Shankara pays due respect to Maya when he says:

“She is neither existent nor non-existent nor partaking of both characters; neither same
nor different nor both; neither composed of parts nor indivisible whole nor both. She is
most wonderful and cannot be described in words.” [Viveka-Chudamani 109]

The ‘strands’ which bind us are very strong, the human mind is very unsteady, and the
web of names and forms (‘nama-rupa’) which we spin over reality – over things they are
and of themselves – is very real indeed. Each one of us, in a way, is spinning his own
Maya-cocoon, each one has his or her own view of reality. We might say that the great
cosmic ‘Maya-dance’ consists in innumerable subjective daydreams. It is no more
coincidence that all great religious teachers call on us to ‘awaken’.

Advaita and Yoga

A typical ‘Raja-Yogi’ relies primarily on systematic exercises – he literally works for his
own benefit – for him everything is an experiment the final result of which is a
‘Samadhi’. The ‘Vedantic-Jnani’ on the other hand – no matter how many yoga
exercises he may adopt – never loses sight of the truth that the real heart of liberation
consists in the knowledge that he already is, and has always been, Brahman, that is,
that there is in effect nothing really to do.

Summary of The Maya Teaching

For Shankara only one reality ultimately exists: the impersonal and attribute-less
‘Nirguna Brahman’. At the lower level, Shankara had a place for devotion to ‘Saguna
Brahman’ (Ishvara), the personal God with attributes, and is even said to have
encouraged the performance of Hindu rituals, while, however, having rejected its more
extremely sectarian trends.

Shankara also knew that the ‘realization’, which enables man to be one with his
Brahman nature in the ever-present now, requires a certain amount of preparation. At
the relative level he therefore affirmed the Hindu belief in reincarnation: the wandering
of the individual soul through many forms of existence until it rids itself of all erroneous
identifications with its sheaths, its bodily ‘envelop’, and realizes its original
boundlessness again.

Defending the Citadel of God: Love of the Personal God

For Shankara, as for most Hindus, there was indeed an eternally immutable Lord
of the Universe, representing, as it were, the Absolute in the realm of Maya.

Something very important seems to be missing in Shankara’s seemingly all-

encompassing system, something which is really part of absolute divine nature.
Shankara’s Nirguna Brahman is in fact only half of the truth, only one side of reality.
Does the other side, the personal, creative, dynamic, and above all ‘loving’ side of God
not also have a claim to absolute reality?

The Pendulum Swings Back: Ramanuja

Ramanuja (1017 – 1137 AD) called his system ‘Vishshta-Advaita’. In Ramanuja’s view
the universe and individual souls together constitute the ‘body of God’, which is,
however, far surpassed by God’s true nature. He maintained that when there was talk of
‘Nirguna’ in the Vedic scriptures and Brahman was sometimes referred to be devoid of
attributes, this referred only to negative attributes, since God possessed only positive
attributes, such as omniscience, wisdom, beauty, compassion and so forth.

One immediately notices that these are the words of a philosopher with the heart of a
‘Bhakta’. Ramanuja’s conception was that of an organic whole where the individual soul
is part of Brahman.

The idea of an organic whole in which all parts are oriented toward the one, toward
God, in whose being they ‘partake’, is not only more accessible to the human heart than
Shankara’s position was, but also one that makes more sense to the mind. For the mind
can think only in relative terms, it sees things in relation to each other, it sees the whole
and its parts.

Ramanuja saw the sentient and non-sentient universe together as the body of God.
According to him, creation is real precisely because it is in a certain sense God himself.
It is not some magic trick, not merely a mirage, but part of the totality of the divine. Maya
exists as the creative power of God and impedes enlightenment only in the lower
regions: as ‘avidya’ or ignorance.

Ramanuja simply fits everything together – the world, the individual souls, and God –
and declares it to be one, and with plenty of room for plurality and differences. His ‘One’
is a whole-of-many-parts, but no sharp distinctions, nothing abrupt. One can work one’s
way up step-by-step from the lower regions of ignorance to the proximity of God.

Distinction or Identity

Madhva (1199 – 1278 AD) distanced himself so far from Shankara’s Advaita that he
called his system ‘Dvaita’ (two-ness, duality). Madhva opposed the identity of God and
the human soul but also broke with Ramanuja’s organic unity of God and the world. To
Madhva, each soul is different from every other soul, and each is totally distinct from
God.

Vallabha, Nimbarka, and Chaitanya (1485 – 1533 AD) were all Vaishnavas and as such
practiced fervent devotion to God in the form of Krishna. In their schools the Personal
God had fully replaced the Supra-Personal Brahman of the Upanishads.

To the followers of the Bhakti’ school, ‘Mukti’ (salvation, release) and ‘Bhakti’ (loving
surrender) are inseparable. Bhakti’s soul goal is more Bhakti, even greater love of God.
It must be like the love of a lover who is free from any motive other than the very act of
loving. To a Bhakta, this kind of love is the highest bliss.
 The Return of Shakti: God’s Creative Power

Ramakrishna: Son of Divine Mother

Ramakrishna’s greatness consisted precisely in his paying little attention to established

categories; he could not be pigeonholed. There is no doubt that he was a great Bhakta,
filled with love for the personal God, but he favored worshipping Him in the form of
Shakti, the Divine Mother.

Ramakrishna himself had succeeded in entering the Supra-personal zone. Indeed with
the ‘Jnana’ sword of Discrimination which his Advaita guru Totapuri had pressed in io
his hand, he had cut-off even the image of his Divine Mother – root of all forms and
personifications – enabling him to plunge into the ocean of absolute consciousness. But
unlike Shankara he did not as a result of this experience call into question the reality of
the Personal God and His Creation. He quite simply looked on them as the other side of
the Absolute: the dynamic – creative and personal side, its life, so to speak.

In Ramakrishna’s case, all aspects of the divine reality were equally valid, not because
of indifference but because his intense love embraced them all – including even Christ
and the God of Islam. He did not just tolerate them. Quite the contrary! He lived with
them, and in turn discovered each to be a gateway to the impersonal absolute, in his
eyes their common ground.

“God has many names and innumerable forms, through which we can approach him…
Just water is called by different names in various languages – one calling it ‘water’,
another ‘vari’, a third ‘aqua’ and a fourth ‘pani’ – so is the One ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ called
by some ‘God’, by others ‘Allah’, by some ‘Hari’, and again by others ‘Brahman’.”

- Ramakrishna

While, with Shankara, only a denial of Maya’s creative powers led to ‘Advaita’, with
Ramakrishna it was precisely the vision of inseparable ‘oneness’ of the Absolute and
the relative that constituted true ‘Advaita’.
Ramakrishna sees Maya as being of two kinds. He said that ‘Avidya-Maya’ (the Maya of
Ignorance) deludes, but that ‘Vidya-Maya’ (the Maya of Wisdom) begets devotion,
kindness, wisdom and love, which leads to God.

Vivekananda: You Are Gods!

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) was a passionate herald of ‘Advaita Vedanta’ who

spread the universal message of his master Ramakrishna both in India and the West.

Vivekananda taught Shankara’s Advaita-Vedanta, enriched by the all-inclusive

experiences of his master Ramakrishna – experiences which also allowed for more of
the devotional Bhakti aspect, not only of Hinduism, but also of Christianity and Islam.

Vivekananda believed that he could bring together under one umbrella the various
Vedanta schools – Shankara’s pure Advaita, Ramanuja’s qualified non-dualism, and
Madhva’s dualism, and even the theological systems of other religions – by arranging
them as stages one above the other. Ramakrishna himself had often suggested this
idea, when he quoted Hanuman’s words from Purans:

“O Ram, sometimes I worship You as the One, an Absolute Abundance. Then I look
upon myself as part of you. Sometimes I meditate on You, O Rama, as my Divine Lord.
Then I look upon myself as Your servant. But when, O Rama, I am graced with the
highest knowledge, I see and know that I am You and You are me.”

The content of Vivekananda’s Vedanta, greatly simplified is: “All Creation is the outward
expression of Brahman, the creative potency of which continually generates new forms.
In this process every being is designed to eventually rediscover his originally true
nature (may be in many births). Every soul is potentially Divine. The purpose of life is to
manifest this Divine nature, whether it be by ‘Raja-Yoga’, the Path of Meditation (and
control of the mind); by ‘Bhakti-Yoga’, the Path of Loving Devotion; by ‘Karma-Yoga’,
the Path of Selfless Action (and service); or by ‘Jnana-Yoga’, the Path of Knowledge. In
order that his life be as universal as possible – that it be the most perfect reflection of
the abundance of the Absolute – it is best to live by all these paths.”

Aurobindo: Shakti as Creative Energy

The return of Shakti, the creative power of the Absolute, celebrated its greatest triumph
in the figure of Shri Aurobindo (1872-1950).

Aurobindo saw Brahman’s manifest creation not as an illusion or empty play, but as the
gradual ascent of the divine from inert and unknowing gross physical matter toward
perfect, divine consciousness – an ascent simultaneously with a descent of transcended
reality.

The supra-mental reality, regarded by Aurobindo as the ultimate aim, transcended the
earlier antithesis of static immobility versus creatively positive activity and was closer to
the Brahman of the Upanishads than to the strongly ideological absolute of Shankara.

Aurobindo combined ancient Vedic instructions with humanitarian expectations.

Ramana Maharshi: Pure Being

Ramana Maharshi, the sage of Arunachala, who also died in 1950, appears to be the
exact opposite of Shri Aurobindo. Spellbound and absorbed by an immutable absolute
with no room for evolutionary development toward a new earth, he still seems to belong
entirely to the old Advaita school of Shankara.

For many people in the 20th century, Ramana Maharshi became the epitome of the
legendary ‘Vedantic Jeevan-mukta’, the one liberated in this body.

Review: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi