INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
ADVAITAVEDANTA
BASED ON
UPANISHADS
PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY – VEDANTA
BOOK – UPANISHADS AND BRAHMA SUTRAS
ADVAITA VISHISHT ADVAITA DVAITA OTHERS
(NON - (QUALIFIED NON- (DUALISM)
DUALISM) DUALISM)
SHANKARA RAMANUJA MADHAVA OTHER PHILOSOPHERS
PUBLICISING VEDANTA AND INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
1. Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded
analytical psychology
“Brahman is the union and dissolution of all opposites, and at the same time stands
outside them as an irrational factor. It is therefore wholly beyond cognition and
comprehension.” – Jung: Psychological Types §330
2. Erwin Schrodinger, was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-Irish physicist
"The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave
mechanics. This is entirely consistent with the Vedanta concept of All in One."
3. Niels Bohr, the Danish Nobel-prize winning physicist said
In Stephen Prothero’s book God Is Not One (pg. 144), Niels Bohr has quoted:
“I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.”
4. Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818
work The World as Will and Representation translated Upanishads to Latin.
5. Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was an American-born British poet, essayist, publisher,
playwright, literary critic and editor, was heavily influenced by Vedanta and
Buddhist philosophies.
6. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American
essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of
the mid-19th century wrote a poem on Brahma (the absolute reality, not to be
confused with the Hindu God Brahma)
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.
7. Swami Vivekananda quoted,
“The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that
Being in full, not a part of that Being.”
• ADVAITA VEDANTA
• VEDANTA – VEDAS + ANTA = END OF VEDAS
• CONSIDERED TO BE THE HIGHEST FORM OF SPIRITUAL
KNOWLEDGE
• MOST POPULAR FOUNDER - SHANKARACHARYA
• BORN – SOMEWHERE NEAR 8TH CENTURY AD OR MAYBE BEFORE
• PLACE OF BIRTH – KALADY, KERELA
• TOOK RENUNCIATION AT THE AGE OF 11 AND WALKED ALMOST
ENTIRE INDIA BAREFOOT
ADVAITA VEDANTA
ADVAITA : A + DVAITA = NON – DUALISM
OPPOSED THE BELIEF THEN THAT GOD SOUL
(PARAMATMA) AND BODY SOUL (JIVA ATMA)
WERE DIFFERENT (STRICT DUALIST IDEAS)
PROPOSED THAT BOTH GOD AND SENTIENT
BEING SOULS ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING
YOU AND I ARE NOT DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER,
WE ARE ONE AND THE SAME (NON – DUAL)
YES, EVEN NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI
PRACTISED ADVAITA VEDANTA
5 GLOBAL QUESTIONS IN PHILOSOPHY
DO WE REALLY HAVE FREE WILL? MORE OR LESS
DIRECTLY
CAN WE KNOW
ANYTHING AT ALL?
ANSWERED BY
ADVAITA
WHO AM I? VEDANTA
WHAT IS DEATH?
AAH!
WHAT DOES GLOBAL NOT
INTERESTED
JUSTICE LOOK LIKE?
STORY TIME
RAJA JANAKA – KING OF MITHILA,
GOES TO SAGE ASHTAVAKRA, ASKS,
DREAMS OF BEING POOR, GREAT
TELLS HIM NEITHER THAT IS TRUE NOR
SUFFERINGS, COULDN’T GET FOOD
THIS IS TRUE, ONLY YOU ARE THE TRUTH
TO EAT, TORN CLOTHES, VERY UPSET
(NOT YOU AS THE EGO BUT YOU AS THE
SUDDENLY WAKES UP AND ASKS
WITNESS, AS THE ONE THO IS AWARE OF
EVERONE WHICH ONE IS THE TRUTH,
BOTH THE STATES)
NOW OR THEN?
WHO AM I?
ANSWER BY MANDUKYA UPANISHAD
3 PHASES IN A DAY
AWAKENED STATE DREAM STATE DEEP SLEEP STATE TURIYAM
(JAGRAT) (SWAPNAH) (SUSHUPTI) (THE REAL SELF)
THE WAKENING STATE RAPID EYE NON – RAPID EYE THE REAL SELF
MOST TIME LIVED IN MOVEMENT MOVEMENT (NON – OTHERS BEING THE
SENTIENT BEINGS SLEEP (REM) REM) PROJECTION OF THIS
ALSO CALLED ATMAN
HEY
NOT ME!
BRACELET
NECKLACE
TURIYAM (THE REAL SELF)
RING
WHAT IS TURIYAM / ATMA/ SELF ?
7TH VERSE OF MANDUKYA UPANISHAD
DENOTES
A AWAKENED
STATE
DENOTES
U DREAM
STATE
DENOTES
DEEP
M SLEEP
STATE
SILENCE
DENOTES THE SELF
UNDESCRIBABLE
DISCIPLE – IF WE ARE NOT THE BODY, THEN WHAT ARE WE?
FOOD BODY (ANNA) – OUTERMOST GROSS
BODY
LIFE FORCES (PRANA) –
SECOND LEVEL
MIND (MANAS)
(MEMORY/LOGIC/EMOTION) – THIRD SUBTLE
LEVEL BODY
INTELLECT (BUDDHI)
(UNDERSTANDING/GETTING TO
KNOW) – FOURTH LEVEL
BLISS BODY (ANANDA) – FIFTH BODY CAUSAL
OR CAUSAL BODY BODY
BUT WE ARE NONE OF THE BODIES
MENTIONED ABOVE
THEN WHO ARE WE?
TEACHER – WE ARE ATMAN OR BRAHMAN
WHAT IS BRAHMAN?
ANSWER BY TAITTREYI UPANISHAD
SATYAM JNANAM ANANTAM BRAHMA
1. EXISTENCE (SATYAM)
2. CONSCIOUSNESS (JNANAM) / ONE WHO IS
AWARE OF THE KNOWLEDGE
3. INFINITE
(ANANTAM)
1. ANANT - INFINTE BRAHMAN
INFINITE IN SPACE INFINITE IN TIME INFINITE IN OBJECT
OMNIPRESENT – NOT JUST ETERNAL – NOT JUST NOW, NON DUAL – NOT JUST
HERE, NOT JUST THERE, BUT NOT JUST THEN, BUT THIS, NOT JUST THAT, BUT
EVERYWHERE EVERYTIME EVERYTHING
2. EXISTENCE / REALITY / TRUTH
(SATYAM)
THIS IS A GLASS THIS IS A BOOK
COMMON WORD - IS
IS MEANS EXISTENCE / TO BE / TO EXIST
BRAHMAN
3. CONSCIOUSNESS (JNANAM/CHAITANYA)
BASED ON KENA UPANISHAD
DISCIPLE - ‘At whose desire and by whom impelled does the mind alight on its objects. By whom
impelled does the chief prana (vital force) proceed to its functions? By whom impelled
do men utter this speech? What deva (luminous being) directs the eyes and the ears? ’
‘It (the Ātman) is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of the speech,
TEACHER - the prāna of the prāna, and the eye of the eye. Wise men, separating the Ātman from
these (sense functions), rise out of sense-life and attain immortality.’
‘The dull-witted man thinks he is only the body; the book-learned man identifies
himself with the mixture of body and soul. But the sage, possessed of realization
through discrimination, looks upon the eternal Ātman as the Self and thinks, ‘I am
Brahman (The Self of All).’
AHAM BRAHMASMI ( I AM BRAHMAN / GOD )
FUNNY STORY TIME
KNOWN UNKNOWN
I AM NOT THE KNOWN NOR AM I THE UNKNOWN
I AM THE KNOWER – THE WITNESS OF
EVERYTHING HAPPENING AROUND ME
CONCLUSION
YOU AND I ARE NOT DIFFERENT
YOU AND I ARE GOD
JIVA ATMAN IS NOT DIFFERENT FROM PARAM ATMAN
YOU ARE NOT THE GROSS BODY, NOR THE SUBTLE BODY , NOR THE CAUSAL BODY
YOU ARE BRAHMAN
YOU ARE EXISTENCE, CONSIOUSNESS, INFINITE
REFERENCES
1. KENA UPANISHAD, TRANSLATION BY SRI AUROBINDO
2. TAITTREYI UPANISHAD, TRANSLATION BY SWAMI SHARVANANDA
3. MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, TRANSLATION BY SWAMI
KRISHNANANDA
4. LECTURES BY SWAMI SARVAPRIYANANDA, MINISTER OF
VEDANTA SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
