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WHAT IS ADVAITA?
Advaita
means in Sanskrit "non-duality"; a
state that can be ascribed to God or the Absolute alone. It is not
accessible to reason, for the ego-bound mind in the waking condition
cannot step out of the duality of the subject-object relationship. The
concept of non-duality has acquired meaning in the West through the latest
discoveries of nuclear physics.
Advaita-Vedànta,
(in Sanskript) represents one of the three Systems of thought in Vedânta;
its most important representative is Shankara. Advaita-Vedànta
teaches that the manifest creation, the soul, and God are identical. Just
as particle physicists have discovered that matter consists of continually
moving fields of energy, so the sages (rishis) of Vedânta
recognized that reality consists of energy in the form of consciousness (chit) and that human begins perceive a gross universe by
means of gross senses, because of identification with the ego-limited
body. That which is real and unchanging is superimposed in the mind (vikshepa)
by the notion of an ever-changing manifest world of names and shapes (nàmarùpa).
Shankara's best-known example is the piece of rope that in the dark is taken for a snake. Anxiety, repugnance, heart palpitations are induced by a snake that was never born and never will die, but that exists only in one's mind. Once the rope is recognized under light as a rope, it cannot turn back into a snake. The initial error involves not only nescience of what is, but also the superimposition (vikshepa) of a notion that has nothing to do with what is. Advaita teaches that we in essence of the ritual, understood beyond the mere enactment of the rite, which in reality serves to prepare and sustains the practice of contemplation. For more reading on this subject I would recommend books written by these authors Ramana Maharshi- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - Ramesh S.Balsekar.
Ramesh Balsekar Sayings of Ramesh from his daily meditation book: "A Net of Jewels" The sage lives in complete apprehension of the fact that there is no individual doing anything, whether it be writing, walking, talking or anything else. Thus, he may be said to walk a thousand miles without setting a foot outside of his house or speak for forty years without saying a word. The human being as an entity is only the result of thought, of the accumulated and constantly repeating conditioning that there is something in us which survives through time. Thus our private identity has been established in each of us as our own personal tradition. Thought, desire and fear are all based on time or duration through memory - they are not of the present moment. They disappear along with time itself when volition has been abandoned or surrendered. The nature of Consciousness is such that it simultaneously pervades the past, present and future and can experience infinite varieties of universes. But all is merely the play of Consciousness itself. Man frees himself from the world, its ills, its suffering, its chaos simply by seeing the absurdity of it all. The ultimate understanding can come neither by straining to hang on to the material pleasures of the world nor by making efforts to seek and grasp the infinite Absolute. It comes by recognizing that the universe is the objective body of the subjective SELF. The only condition for the realization of Truth is that the knowledge of it be desired with tremendous intensity. You cannot see IT, you cannot feel IT, you cannot feel IT only because you do not really want IT - you are too preoccupied with enjoying and sorrowing over your finite existence.
The
sense of being alive, being present, is so intoxicating that one is
enchanted by the manifestation it presents and gets so involved as to
forget to find out if the spectacle really exists or is merely a hallucination,
a dream, a mirage. Intellect is what brings about the sense of fear, because it is the intellect that rejects change and wants security. It is the swallowing up of all differences that brings into light and points the finger at our impersonal source - the true nature of what we ARE.
The word "surrender" is used where
there is a duality between "me" and God. When this surrender
happens, this will, which we think of as ours drops off, and there is
total acceptance that all that prevails is His Will. When you stop searching and let the impersonal consciousness take over, then it lets you in on the mystery of its own source, and you will know that things have no substance 01/21/08 Note: The extracts contained here are for personal use only, and may not be reproduced for commercial distribution. All his books can be purchased at Advaita Fellowship Store:
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