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I feel this person has understood Advaita concept really well...worth a read.
Stefan Pecho, As science approaches the nonduality, so Advaita Vedanta approached the science.
Updated Sep 22, 2018 · Author has 2.4k answers and 3.4m answer views
Let me answer in an unorthodox way.
When one views Advaita as a philosophy (school, system, etc.), one naturally has the tendency to fix the founder and historicity of the philosophy.
However, let us view at Advaita not philosophically but technically / semantically / substantially. A-Dvaita means clearly Not-Two (No-Two). Even in my mother (Slovak) language it means clearly No-Two because in Slovak Dva=Two.
Technically, Advaita describes the experiential (not philosophical) spiritual knowledge. As an expression of a natural human spiritual experience, Advaita is an eternal human reality not depending on any religion, philosophy, school, or whatever formal concepts.
Understand me please properly. Surely, I am aware that the Advaita is a constituent of the Indian spiritual tradition mentioned already in Upanishads and later in other scriptures and connected historically with Adi Shaknkaracharya.
Anyhow, in understanding the Advaita technically as a universal human experiential spiritual reality, it is clear that Non-duality was a constituent of human experience in all cultures, all ethnics, all religions, and all spiritual systems, regardless of the fact if this human spiritual experience was formalized, labeled by name, or framed in a teaching or philosophy…
By other words, one can have the non-dual spiritual experience without knowing anything at all about Advaita, Zen, Sufism, or Dzogchen…
Thus, Advaita is eternal within the existence of humankind. It means it is much “older” than any formal naming of it by/in any culture or spiritual tradition.
In ancient times, when the human spirituality was practical and not philosophical and religious, the spiritually matured people (standing on a non-dual spiritual experience) did not show themselves publicly as special individuals or groups of people. They lived the life, as it is = not as a special, ideal, or highest “level of life”. We can understand this reality thanks to Dzogchen. In old Tibet (actually even yet in 18th century), people even did not know that among them there were spiritually highly matured individuals. Dzogchen as a system / school / philosophy is relatively new “discipline”.
India played an important role in giving to the world several great treatises dealing with Advaita teaching. No other culture enriched in such a way the human spirituality in its realms of non-duality.
However, it must be also openly said, that India also philosophized Advaita too much. Advaita became the intellectual discipline like to be manageable only by smart and sophisticated intellectual thinking and understanding.
Advaita is not an intellectual discipline. Advaita is a result of deepening the human observation and experience reflecting the world as it is in reality. Therefore, the readers of treatises can be enriched by the messages contained in the Advaita books only through their personal spiritual experiences; not through the brightness of their intellect.
4.3k views · View 41 Upvoters · View Sharers
I feel this person has understood Advaita concept really well...worth a read.
Stefan Pecho, As science approaches the nonduality, so Advaita Vedanta approached the science.
Updated Sep 22, 2018 · Author has 2.4k answers and 3.4m answer views
Let me answer in an unorthodox way.
When one views Advaita as a philosophy (school, system, etc.), one naturally has the tendency to fix the founder and historicity of the philosophy.
However, let us view at Advaita not philosophically but technically / semantically / substantially. A-Dvaita means clearly Not-Two (No-Two). Even in my mother (Slovak) language it means clearly No-Two because in Slovak Dva=Two.
Technically, Advaita describes the experiential (not philosophical) spiritual knowledge. As an expression of a natural human spiritual experience, Advaita is an eternal human reality not depending on any religion, philosophy, school, or whatever formal concepts.
Understand me please properly. Surely, I am aware that the Advaita is a constituent of the Indian spiritual tradition mentioned already in Upanishads and later in other scriptures and connected historically with Adi Shaknkaracharya.
Anyhow, in understanding the Advaita technically as a universal human experiential spiritual reality, it is clear that Non-duality was a constituent of human experience in all cultures, all ethnics, all religions, and all spiritual systems, regardless of the fact if this human spiritual experience was formalized, labeled by name, or framed in a teaching or philosophy…
By other words, one can have the non-dual spiritual experience without knowing anything at all about Advaita, Zen, Sufism, or Dzogchen…
Thus, Advaita is eternal within the existence of humankind. It means it is much “older” than any formal naming of it by/in any culture or spiritual tradition.
In ancient times, when the human spirituality was practical and not philosophical and religious, the spiritually matured people (standing on a non-dual spiritual experience) did not show themselves publicly as special individuals or groups of people. They lived the life, as it is = not as a special, ideal, or highest “level of life”. We can understand this reality thanks to Dzogchen. In old Tibet (actually even yet in 18th century), people even did not know that among them there were spiritually highly matured individuals. Dzogchen as a system / school / philosophy is relatively new “discipline”.
India played an important role in giving to the world several great treatises dealing with Advaita teaching. No other culture enriched in such a way the human spirituality in its realms of non-duality.
However, it must be also openly said, that India also philosophized Advaita too much. Advaita became the intellectual discipline like to be manageable only by smart and sophisticated intellectual thinking and understanding.
Advaita is not an intellectual discipline. Advaita is a result of deepening the human observation and experience reflecting the world as it is in reality. Therefore, the readers of treatises can be enriched by the messages contained in the Advaita books only through their personal spiritual experiences; not through the brightness of their intellect.
4.3k views · View 41 Upvoters · View Sharers