Advaita Vedanta (/ʌdˈvaɪtə vɛˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त, is a #Hindu #sādhanā, a #path of #spiritual #discipline and #experience, and the oldest #extant #tradition of the #orthodox Hindu school #Vedānta. The term #Advaita (literally "non-secondness", but usually rendered as "#nondualism",and often equated with #monism) refers to the idea that #Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the #transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (#maya) of Brahman.

#AdvaitaVedanta

#AdvaitaVedanta (/ʌdˈvaɪtə vɛˈdɑːntə/; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त, is a #Hindu #sādhanā, a #path of #spiritual #discipline and #experience, and the oldest #extant #tradition of the #orthodox Hindu school #Vedānta. The term #Advaita (literally "non-secondness", but usually rendered as "#nondualism",and often equated with #monism) refers to the idea that #Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the #transient phenomenal world is an illusory appearance (#maya) of Brahman.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta

@permafriday @tokyo_0 @00Aaron @olavf @Nordstahl As an ABCD Elder Millennial raised on Amar Chitra Katha from the 70’s and 80’s, I recommend Grant Morrison’s 18 Days

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVQ-5tGttzR9txcAtYJG2_XEieXE2yVnz

#GrantMorrison #18Days #Mahabharata #GenX #graphicnovel #ancientmythology #storytelling #philosophy #metaphysics #advaitavedanta #sanskrit #culture #communication #characters #narrative #theology #atman #neoplatonism #nous #psychedelics #transcendentalism #neoplatonism #arianism

According to #AdvaitaVedanta the important distinction is not between the conscious and unconscious mind.

In #Vedanta, Pure Witness #Consciousness, the ultimate substrate of reality, illumines ALL parts of the mind, subterranean or otherwise.

Vedanta would say Consciousness is not even absent in coma or deep sleep.

Indeed, the relevant distinction is Witness Consciousness set apart from Nature itself, where "Nature" includes both small 'c' conscious and unconscious cognitive/mental processes

I asked #ChatGPT why someone might think #AdvaitaVedanta is true:

"Someone might find Advaita Vedanta to be true because of its emphasis on direct experience of the non-dualistic nature of reality through contemplation and meditation. The philosophy offers a logically consistent and coherent framework for understanding the nature of reality, the self, and the universe. Additionally, its rich history and cultural significance may provide compelling reasons to consider Advaita Vedanta to be true"

According to #AdvaitaVedanta, #Consciousness is not an emergent property, but the unified field of being upon which, in which, and through which all objects and all properties emerge and appear *to* Consciousness.

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind

The idea that if we build a sufficiently complex #AI #consciousness will magically "emerge" from dead matter is increasingly being recognized in #ConsciousnessStudies as a philosophical dead end.

Leading researchers seem to be converging on an idea that was first articulated in the ancient Vedas and systematized by Adi Shankara 1200 years ago as #AdvaitaVedanta:

Consciousness does not emerge from matter. Rather, *matter* is an appearance in Universal Consciousness *to* Universal Consciousness

IMO, I feel scholars of #Vedanta who lack a fundamental spiritual grounding in the reality of their own phenomenology of #Consciousness hastily critique traditional #AdvaitaVedanta for saying the empirical world is "unreal."

This is too quick, for it misses the crucial phenomenology of what it means to appear *in* consciousness.

A stick in water appears bent. Ultimately, it is not bent. But its bent appearance is still "real" *qua* appearance *to me.*

Exactly the same for Maya in Brahman!

A Sunday morning reflection on #AdvaitaVedanta and St. Anselm's ontological argument, and why Vedanta escapes from Kant's famous objection that existence is not a predicate, providing a phenomenological and methodological means of Self-inquiry for Self-realization, which is God-realization.

#Vedanta #Hinduism #Philosophy #Theology #Spirituality #God #Metaphysics #Writing #Blogging #Consciousness #Phenomenology #Ontology #IndianPhilosophy #Advaita #Nonduality

https://orderoftarot.com/advaita-vedanta-and-the-ontological-argument/

"I am like the ocean and the universe is like the wave. So it has neither to be renounced nor accepted nor destroyed."~ Ashtavakra Gita

There is a common confusion that #AdvaitaVedanta's fundamental distinction between Subjective #Consciousness and the objective world implies Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism

But that is wrong!

The distinction between Subject and Object is a *methodology* of Self-inquiry. But once the goal is reached, the object becomes recognized as a manifestation of the subject

As the strongest of agnostic atheists, as someone who spent 6 years as a philosophy grad student at the PhD level fiercely debating with everyone the illusory nature of consciousness defending the strictest physicalism, atheism, and nihilism I could envision, it is a strange conviction I have come to in now believing the ultimate reality of Self and cosmos is Pure Consciousness!

#AdvaitaVedanta #Philosophy #Consciousness #Spirituality #Metaphysics #Theology #Vedanta

https://orderoftarot.com/from-physicalism-to-the-pure-consciousness-of-vedanta/

Idealists like Kastrup talk about “vortices” or “localizations” in the river of Consciousness. But as Swami Sarvapriyananda says, this is not traditional #AdvaitaVedanta.

In traditional Advaita, there are no real “vortices” in Pure Consciousness, which implies events or changes in Consciousness. By definition for Pure Consciousness to be “pure” it must be eternal & unchanging, to an infinite extent.

Any “vortices” are but appearances in Consciousness appearing *to* Consciousness.

#Philosophy

A Sunday meditation on #AdvaitaVedanta, Sri #Ramakrishna, and Swami Medhananda's argument that Vivekananda's "Integral Advaita" represents a genuine philosophical break between the "world-denying" Advaita of Shankara.

I humbly submit the thesis that there is no genuine ontological distinction between the Advaita of Shankara and Ramakrishna, despite the latter's famous emphasis on immanence.

#Philosophy #Hinduism #Religion #Theology #Mysticism #Spirituality #Vedanta

https://orderoftarot.com/advaita-vedanta-and-ramakrishnas-immanence/

I have a suspicion that William James’ neutral monism in his famous paper “Does Consciousness Exist?” is a watered down and Westernized version of Advaita Vedanta without giving due source credit to the influence of Swami Vivekananda, who he had already met multiple times after Vivekananda’s appearance at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions. James’ concept of “pure experience” is remarkably similar to Advaitan idea of “witness consciousness.”

#Philosophy #PhilosophyOfMind #AdvaitaVedanta

“It is through your ignorance alone that the universe exists. In reality you are One. There is no individual self or Supreme Self other than you.” ~ Ashtavakra Gita, 15.16

When Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” imo He was expressing the same core truth as this great text of #AdvaitaVedanta

The problem is that Jesus’ followers interpreted this statement as being “authorized” to only Him as an individual “I” rather than realizing He meant “I-ness” itself generally

#Spirituality #Theology

My attempt to summarize the logic of #AdvaitaVedanta which says the Self and Brahman are One:

When you look inside your Self, you find Pure Consciousness.

Pure Consciousness is Infinite.

True Infinity obliterates all boundaries.

Therefore Consciousness cannot abide any boundary between Self and Other.

Consciousness thereby does not stop at the boundary of your own mind/body but pervades all of existence.

Therefore, when you look inside the Self, you find Brahman, Pure Being.

#Philosophy

“For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”~ Thomas Merton

“Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the conviction ‘I am the One, and Pure Consciousness’, and be free from grief and be happy.”~ Ashtavakra Gita

IMO Vedanta is like a fine thread running through all of Merton’s pearls of wisdom.

#AdvaitaVedanta #Christianity #Theology #Philosophy #Mysticism

“The goal of human life is to realize God.” ~ Sri Ramakrishna

What a contrast with Christianity as it exists today in mainstream churches!

For Vedanta, the purpose of life is not to "believe in God," but "realize God"

The purpose of life is not to grovel at the feet of God but recognize our inner divinity and oneness with God

The purpose of #Christianity is not to beg for Christ's atonement but realize Christ-consciousness in our own lives

#Spirituality #Religion #Mysticism #AdvaitaVedanta

Why did the One become the Many? Why is there something rather than nothing?

Any student of philosophy, East or West, knows this question to be perhaps the most fundamental of all questions.

In this essay, I defend traditional Advaita Vedanta as the most eloquent, precise, and spiritually enlightening answer to this question ever developed by any philosophical school.

#AdvaitaVedanta #Philosophy #Metaphysics #Spirituality #Vedanta #Theology #Hinduism

https://orderoftarot.com/advaita-vedanta-the-one-and-the-many/

A Vedantic meditation on the exemplary spiritual life of 19th-century Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna and the possibility model entailed in his life as a Second Incarnation of Christ.

How might the spiritual decline of our materialistic age be reignited with the fire of conviction if we meditated on concrete incarnation as a spiritual fact of modernity and not some ancient past 2,000 years ago?

#Ramakrishna #AdvaitaVedanta #Christianity #Religion #Spirituality #Theology

https://orderoftarot.com/sri-ramakrishna-jesus-christ-and-the-new-age-of-incarnation/