Advaita Vedanta

I am fascinated by the philosophical foundations of the various dharmas. The dharmas — the Sanatana dharma (aka Hinduism), the Jain dharma, the Buddha dharma — have a shared foundation. Having evolved in the same geographic region, they share certain foundational concept such as karma, moksha, etc.. However, they differ somewhat in their social and cultural expressions. To borrow a zoological metaphor, they belong to the same genus (dharma) but are distinct species (Sanatana, Jain, Boudha.)

Like most people who identify as Hindus, I grew up in a Hindu household but was never taught the fundamental concepts. We Hindus just absorb bits of our dharma through osmosis, as it were. We do some puja at home and visit temples occasionally. In contrast to that, religious indoctrination of children is common among the religions — Jews have their Hebrew schools, Christians their Sunday schools, and Muslims their madrassas.

That light-handed approach has its advantages. We are definitely protected from a rabid attachment to dogma. And when we grow up, we learn the foundations of our dharma if we are so inclined. A few of us go into it full time and specialize in the study of dharma. Some dharma specialist become teachers of dharma. Here too we have to notice a major difference between the dharmic and the religious ways.

Jews don’t proselytize. You cannot convert to Judaism; you’re a Jew if your mother is a Jew; else good luck to you. But Christians and Muslims proselytize. Whether you want it or not, they will force their religion on non-believers.

In the dharmas, forcing someone to believe something is verboten. It is very common that for a teacher or a guru to not teach until the student entreats the guru — not once but three times — his sincere desire to be taught. We realize soon enough that one has to be worthy of instruction as judged by the guru before any teaching is likely to happen.

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It is often claimed that to really understand dharma, one has to have a personal guru. (The literal meaning of the word guru is “one who removes the darkness of ignorance.”) Perhaps it is best to have a guru but as a second-best device, I believe that one can learn dharma through self-study too provided one has access to good study materials. That’s the best part about the modern world — text, audio, video, graphics are all available at your fingertips.

I don’t have a guru but I have scores of virtual gurus. They are always there to teach me.

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Advaita Vedanata is my favored philosophical position with regards to the nature of existence. Veda — the texts — and anta — the end. Vedanta is the final summary of the Vedas. Dvaita means “dual”; Advaita means non-dual.

I have read a few books, heard talks and watched videos explaining the basic concepts. I like one particular teacher in this regard. He is Swami Sarvapriyananda. (sarv-priya-nanda). He is the spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York.[1]

Here’s an intro to advaita vedanta that Swamiji presented recently. It’s an extract from this youtube video entitled, “Swami Sarvapriyananda and Michael James: Advaita Vedanta and Ramana Maharshi’s teachings.”

At the beginning of this audio track, he recites the Pavamana mantra from the Brhadaranyaka Upaniṣad.

असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्माऽमृतं गमय ॥

asato mā sadgamaya,
tamaso mā jyotirgamaya,
mṛtyormā’mṛtaṃ gamaya.

From untruth, lead me to truth
From darkness, lead me to light
From death, lead me to immortality.

That mantra has been set to music by Don Davis in two pieces of the score for The Matrix Revolutions, Neodämmerung by Don Davis and Navras by Juno Reactor and used in the final battle scene and end credits of the film, respectively. [Wiki.] Here’s Navras.

It’s all karma, neh!

NOTES:

[1] From the Vedanta Society website:

Swami Sarvapriyananda has been the Minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York since January 2017. He joined the Ramakrishna Math in 1994 and received sannyasa in 2004. He served as an acharya (teacher) of the monastic probationers’ training center at Belur Math, India. He also served in various capacities in different educational institutes of the Ramakrishna Mission in India and as the Assistant Minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.

During 2019-2020 he was a Nagral Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School.