Advaita – the essence of Advaita Vedanta

5 min reading time | published on: 19.08.2024

In order to grasp the inner meaning of Advaita, it is important to look at its origins in the Indian tradition. Advaita Vedanta is the best known and most important school of Vedanta today. Its most important teacher was Shankara, who taught in India in the 8th and 9th centuries AD and wrote its central scriptures.

Vedanta translates as the end of the Vedas, as the philosophy of the Upanishads, the last part of the Vedas, bears the name Vedanta. The meaning of Sanskrit: a-dvaita is not-two. This form of Vedanta, which was revealed by Shankara, states in a few words that Atman (the individual soul) and Brahman (the world soul) are one. There is only one consciousness. Atma Jnana (jnana, Sanskrit: realization, true knowledge) and Brahma Jnana, the realization of the Self and the realization of the Absolute, merge into one. However, the statement is not: everything is one, but everything is: not-two. Shankara taught that Brahman has no definite form or recognizable attributes, so that the human mind can find no external point of reference for the realization of the One and must turn inward into the deepened vision of its own reality (and unreality). In Christianity, there is a similar reference in the first commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” Deut 5:8.

Deeper than the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, Advaita is the inner core of this ancient Indian wisdom teaching and thus cannot really be described as a traditional teaching, but as a direct pointer for a seeker to the deepest and highest truth. In this sense of its meaning, Advaita cannot be limited to a particular spiritual tradition, but is at the heart of every inner teaching that points the way to what really is.

How did Advaita come to the West?

There has always been a small number of people in the West who have been drawn to the East, especially to India, where spirituality is natural, integrated and lived as the foundation of human existence. In the post-war generation of the 1960s and 1970s, a mass movement emerged to question old values, mental rigidities and religious dogmas. With this wave, many people went to Indian teachers, learned about Advaita for the first time and tasted the turn to a serious, credible, radical spiritual practice. This opening then led to the so-called Satsang movement in the Western world (Satsang: gathering in truth), in which the encounter with a spiritual teacher, a guru, became socially acceptable and in it both the shadows of a superficial mass phenomenon and an authentic longing for living spirituality became visible.

The gem of distinction

from Shankara

In this Advaita classic, Shankara teaches the non-duality (a-dvaita) of Atman (the innermost consciousness or self of man) and Brahman (the absolute being of the universe). Both form an inseparable unity in which all opposites are abolished. The path to liberation lies in overcoming our ignorance and lack of knowledge by cutting through the veils of illusion that conceal this absolute reality with the sword of knowledge and understanding.

The line of Advaita teachers

Ramana Maharshi, the great Indian master of Advaita, raised the question: “Who am I?” in all its simplicity and radicalness for the first time in the consciousness of many people. This question reveals the core of non-duality, because whoever knows himself, knows the Self, knows God. His student Shri Poonjaji followed in this line of sages and was sought out as a well-known Advaita teacher by many western people, among them Antoinette Roberson Varner, known by her spiritual name Gangaji. In the form of a western woman, through devotion to her teacher, the One Consciousness was realized in her and she became the first well-known Advaita teacher in the West, who to this day receives seekers from all over the world. In 1990, after a serious car accident, Cedric Parkin died and was brought back to life by doctors. Triggered by this shock, he had the experience of awakening to reality. Shortly after his accident, he met Gangaji, who accompanied him in the complete deepening and consolidation of this experience, so that the realization of the immortal self took place. Cedric Parkin was given the name OM by Shri Poonjaji, Gangaji’s teacher. OM lives and teaches as an Advaita teacher in Germany, whereby his teaching is not tied to a tradition, but is based on the pure core of every inner teaching.

He distinguishes Advaita between two streams. The Indian origin emphasizes the “teaching of being” and shows that the world of appearances, the human body and all matter, feelings and thoughts are only illusions and do not need any further attention from the seeker who really wants to recognize reality. For a Western person, whose culture has overemphasized the intellect, strongly identified with a split, “independent” self and an emotional poverty suppressed by thinking, this direct access is difficult to find. Thus, OM C. Parkin developed the “philosophy of becoming” alongside the pure teaching of being in the East. The inner path of a Western person looks different to that of an Indian, for example. It requires the exploration of the mind, of identification with an ego through the so-called “small self-exploration”, which is connected to the question: Who am I not (and what do I think I am)?

Critical questions and clear answers

Time and again, people in the West came into contact with this simple question: “Who am I?”, leaned back with relief and believed that they had completed their inner journey and found the truth. If everything is consciousness, where am I heading on my inner journey? If I am not separated from the self/from God, why am I “working” on myself or doing a spiritual practice? These questions became attractive and seemed to lead to simple answers. But experience over time showed that the dimension of the effectiveness of the ego-mind was underestimated and Insights into silence u

and truth were not permanent. The criticism of Advaita, i.e. doubtful voices regarding the credibility of this teaching, which is completely unexplored for us Westerners, does not refer to Advaita, but to the difficulty of Westerners in really following this radicalism.

So here too, Advaita points to a non-duality. The philosophy of becoming and that of being can combine in the heart of a searching person and produce something new: the willingness to give everything and to engage in the (sometimes arduous) daily spiritual practice AND the possibility of letting go of everything – all effort, everything achieved, everything known – in order to ask the one question: Who am I?

The gem of distinction

from Shankara

In this Advaita classic, Shankara teaches the non-duality (a-dvaita) of Atman (the innermost consciousness or self of man) and Brahman (the absolute being of the universe). Both form an inseparable unity in which all opposites are abolished. The path to liberation lies in overcoming our ignorance and lack of knowledge by cutting through the veils of illusion that conceal this absolute reality with the sword of knowledge and understanding.

Recommended literature on the topic:

Shankara: The gem of distinctiong

Sri Karapatra Swami: Advaita Bodha Deepika – Light of non-dual wisdom