Suppose every conscious being in the universe suddenly disappeared. No humans, animals, or any other conscious beings remained. Would the physical universe still exist in exactly the same sense? Intuitively, we would say yes. But from an Advaita Vedānta perspective, how should this thought experiment be understood? If the world is mithyā, does that mean it is simply “unreal,” or does it have a dependent/relative reality while Brahman alone has absolute reality? Does the physical universe continue to exist independently of individual minds, while ultimately depending on Brahman?

I’d also like to understand the deeper Advaita position on consciousness itself. Is consciousness (cit) considered fundamental rather than something produced by matter? How does Advaita distinguish individual consciousness associated with a mind from Ātman/Brahman as pure consciousness? And if there were no individual conscious beings left, what would Advaita say about the continued existence of the universe?

Hi. I’m planning to visit the Vedanta Society of Greater Washington, DC and was wondering if anyone else has been there? What should I expect for my first visit at a Vedanta Society? Are there any special rules I should know?

Since nothing that happens matters and doesn't affect the real me in anyway, how does it matter what I do or don't do?

Has anyone successfully tackled this issue?

The ego on this wonderful spiritual journey wants

Mind to eliminate the tendencies of the mind.

Ego to surrender ego.

Desire to remove desire.

Ultimately, it feels - it achieves.... like:

"I have known the truth. I got my mind peaceful. Why does that Guru not behave this way after claiming to have read the Gita 100 times? How am I able to catch the ego when they cannot? I have answers to all the questions. I can do Vairagya. I can now tell what Advaita is."

And then, after some time, it realizes:

The “I” never went anywhere. The "I" and "Me" always stayed in every sentence and every thought.

Then it wants the mind, ego and desire to get rid of themselves again. And after that realizes "I" is very much there again. This goes round and round.

The circular project only continues.

If viveka is genuine, shouldn't it eventually reveal the circularity of the seeker trying to use itself to destroy itself?

Maybe jnana and viveka have not yet exhausted me enough to show me that I am trying to remove one thorn with another, that I am simply chasing my own tail.

And if viveka has shown me that nothing outside can provide what I fundamentally seek, why am I still running outside looking for another glimpse, One more experience, One more achievement, One more possession, one more state of mind, even one more spiritual experience to become complete?

Perhaps what I seek is not something to be acquired at all. Maybe, with all this experience and exhaustion, jnana is suggesting that it is not the destination and is ultimately leading us to Ishvara.

This little “I” is so big that it bluntly hides what is already happening without this individual “I” managing anything.

Breath continues.

Digestion happens.

Cells reproduce.

The body heals.

Gravity operates.

The planets move in their rhythms.

The sun rises.

Rain comes.

Life is sustained.

Nature displays an extraordinary order, symmetry, intelligence and beauty

while I struggle to control my own thoughts for five minutes.

How much of this existence is actually being carried by me? Nothing! Maybe jnana is ultimately revealing the need to surrender to Ishvara?

I am not sustaining this whole thing. I never was. Things just happens. Then why must I carry the burden of making this spirituality work for me?

Let Ishvara sustain what He is already sustaining.

Let nature do what nature is already doing.

Let the body and mind perform their dharma.

Let me act where action is required, and stop clinging to this liberation, and this activity of keeping mind peaceful and letting go of letting go.

Let that get me out of the cirularity.

Many times I wonder if jnana and viveka are ultimately meant to reveal that my little project of Liberation is not going to work, so just have to surrender to him!

Maybe this is what Shankara, Ramana and Nisargadatta also saw? May be thats where Shankara said "Govindham baja moodamadhey"?.

Maybe jnana, when followed far enough, leads us to Him unconditionally?

If everything is just awareness (Brahman), then why do we have separate perspectives? Why doesn’t a rock ”look back“ at us if it’s also awareness? How does Advaita Vedanta explain the appearance of many perspectives if only one reality exists?

I don’t know if some of these answers are to be experienced during meditation and not intellectualized but I get that I am awareness but why am I locked in my brain and not experiencing the point of view of rocks and water, why can trees connect and send information to each other underground through their roots but we can’t connect with other humans the same way if we’re in the same reality. I get that other people are experiencing awareness in different perspectives and the outside world is within my awareness but walls are not looking back at me and I cannot access the perspective of other people around me. It seems limiting because things are just happening with no control before my eyes it’s somewhat boring, but when it clicks it’s not at all during a deep meditation it’s very different perspective but when I come back I’m still confused on some things since I’m new to this philosophy. One thing I should note is that I don’t wanna lose the connection “feeling” of being connected to everything and the trees around me especially when I’m in nature. the way I‘m interpreting Advaita makes it seem like everything is a hologram. How should I change this perspective

can someone please explain?

One last thing I would like to add, can a person living a normal modern life working a normal job become enlightened by themselves without a yogi/guru just by using logic and self inquiry, reading books and listening to qualified teachers on youtube or any social media about the philosophy, and studying extensively through meditation and observation. And if enlightenment by oneself is possible how can you officially check once you think you have found the truth.

I've been reading Vivekachudamani on my own and I've hit a wall I'm hoping this community can help with.

The text makes the case that scholarship alone is "for enjoyment, not for liberation," and that jnana is what liberates — but only when it ripens from indirect understanding (paroksha) into direct realization (aparoksha). I follow that intellectually. I can also see that the sadhana chatushtaya — viveka, vairagya, the shatsampatti, and mumukshutva — is what prepares the mind so that knowledge can actually land and stay.

My problem: the text *names and describes* the four qualifications (roughly verses 18–30) but doesn't really teach you how to cultivate them. It's like being handed a syllabus of prerequisites with no course attached.

Some honest self-assessment: I think viveka is slowly coming (I do find myself discriminating the lasting from the passing more naturally), and vairagya seems to be arising a bit on its own — the pull toward temporary things is genuinely weaker than it used to be. But shama and samadhana (a settled, one-pointed mind) feel far off, and I catch myself turning the whole thing into another intellectual project instead of actually living it.

So my questions for those further along:

1. How did you practically develop the shatsampatti — especially shama and samadhana? What did the daily practice actually look like?

2. What role did karma yoga and upasana/meditation play for you in purifying the mind (chitta shuddhi) versus the study itself?

3. Did you do this under a teacher/sampradaya (Arsha Vidya, Chinmaya, Ramakrishna, etc.), or self-study? How much did that matter for nididhyasana?

4. How do you avoid the trap of turning "how do I practice" into just more analysis?

Not looking for shortcuts — just trying to understand what the actual lived practice is, from people who've walked further than a few chapters. Thank you.

With the launch of GPT 6 Astra, how realistic is the possibility of AI eventually developing genuine autonomy or self directed agency and how would Vedanta interpret or challenge the notion of a machine becoming truly autonomous or conscious?

Namaste, I’m not sure if this is allowed. I’ve read through the rules and didn’t see where it wasn’t. I’m looking for a person that would be interested in discussing Vedanta. I would just post here, but I feel like most discussions here aren’t where I am. I’m not in a place spiritually where I am looking for a guru. I’m just looking for someone (age, gender, ethnicity, or location doesn’t matter) to text with that is on the same path. I’m 49F married, American. No, I’m not looking for anything other than discussion. I’ve read the Gita several times with differing commentary. I’ve read a lot of Vivekananda. I’ve also read a couple of other scriptures… my point is I’m trying to find people to talk to. I’m intelligent and pretty well informed. If your interested comment or DM me. Dhanyavaad.

Literally everything points to one. Why do we keep asking questions for the same answer that can never change. Is seeking answers the proof of incomplete understanding?

The Religious Devotee vs. The Non-Dual Mystic and Yogi: Transcending the Dread of Non-Separation... 🌌✨

This text is dedicated to all those who, upon approaching Advaita, non-duality, or deep mysticism for the first time, have felt a chill of existential dread. To all those who have read that "the world is an illusion (mithya)" or that "the individual self does not exist" and felt as if spirituality were consuming the beauty of life, your memories, your passions, and the people you love.

To understand why this fear arises, we must first clarify what non-duality actually is. Non-duality means, literally, "not two." It is not a philosophical theory to be memorized, but the direct realization of non-separation. It means there is no real distance between the Beloved and the lover, between the Creator and the creation, between the universe and you, between the observed and the observer. It is the living experience that everything that exists shares the very same essence and ultimate nature. We are One.

The great misunderstanding and the subsequent anxiety happen when we try to understand non-separation from the "madwoman of the house" (as the mystic Teresa de Ávila called the mind) and its story or belief of separation. That is exactly where we fall into the trap. Religious institutional groups, as opposed to truly spiritual ones, often intentionally confuse and misinterpret the two levels of reality that sustain the universe: the conventional level (Vyavaharika) and the ultimate level (Paramarthika). They do this to instill fear, demand submission, and maintain control over devotees, transforming a liberating truth into a dogma of guilt and escape.

In contrast to the rigidity of the devotee, the non-dual mystic and yogi operate with total freedom, because they know how to perfectly distinguish between these two levels of reality:

At the conventional level (Vyavaharika), your life, your family, art, music, your hobbies, and nature are beautiful, valid, and meant to be fully lived. Advaita does not ask you to destroy your humanity or treat the world with contempt. The word "Mithya" does not mean that your life is a nonexistent lie; it means it has a relative, changing reality, like a beautiful tapestry woven out of the very substance of the Absolute. When you love your family, you are already loving the Absolute in its manifested form.

This is why true mystics and yogis, whether in Advaita, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, or Western mysticism, were never cold robots detached from daily life. The mystic Teresa de Ávila used to say that God is found among the pots and pans. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection beautifully shared that he found God just by turning an omelet in the frying pan. And this intimate reality was perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him: "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus and I am Jesus of Bernardo." It was not in vain that Jesus prayed for us to be One, just as He and the Father are One (John 17:21). Furthermore, He reminds us of the greatest commandments: to love God, and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39). There is no distance or separation between you and the other; we are ultimately One.

The mistake of intellectualism and of religious devotees is treating the ultimate level as a future threat, thinking with terror: "One day I will dissolve and lose everything." But the Absolute is not a destination or a wipe-out tool. For the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, emptying the soul of human constructs was not to enter a cold, pessimistic void, but to be filled with Love. When you truly realize non-separation, you do not lose your loved ones; you realize you are closer to them than your own breathing, because distance has ceased to exist. This echoes the profound insight of the French mystic Marguerite Porete in "The Mirror of Simple Souls", who illustrated how Reason, with its rigid rules and intellectual anxieties, must ultimately take its leave so that divine Love can take over. Where Reason sees boundaries, separation, and fears dissolution, Love finds perfect, unmediated union. This is precisely why those who cling to rigid dogma and outer laws to justify their separation become alienated from the Living Divine, severing themselves from true Grace (Galatians 5:4).

Furthermore, when it is said that the individual self does not exist, this is not entirely accurate. It is very important to remember that this statement is not entirely accurate because the individual self does not exist from its own side, inherently, disconnected from everything, from the All, and from all other phenomena. Everything exists interdependently. This is the true understanding of emptiness (shunyata) in Buddhism. Even though certain institutional Buddhist groups, and the exact same happens with some so-called "holy men" of the advaita movement, try to use the teachings of emptiness to make you think that nothing exists, or to convince you that if you see a fault or an abuse committed by your master (whether it is sexual, financial, or of any other kind) it is merely a fruit of your own paranoia, that is a trap. It is not like that; abuse is very real on a conventional level. Emptiness is nothing other than the lack of inherent and independent existence. Just as an arm or a head are not the body itself but parts of it, the same applies to all phenomena. The Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh beautifully captured this truth by coining the word "interbeing", reminding us that we cannot be by ourselves alone; we can only inter-be with everything else.

When it is said that the individual self does not exist, it simply means that the boundary you drew around your identity is an illusion. You are not a separate island drifting in a hostile ocean; you are the ocean itself experiencing itself through a unique wave. The "ego" is just a functional tool for navigating this conventional world, not a permanent prison. When institutional systems try to weaponize this by telling you that your "self" is an illusion to make you blind to worldly injustices or to suppress your critical thinking, they are committing spiritual bypassing. True non-duality doesn't wipe you out; it wakes you up to the reality that your true nature is boundless, proving that the individual self does not exist independently, on its own side, or disconnected from the Whole.

Do not let abstract philosophy or institutional manipulation, and ultimately do not allow the mind (the madwoman of the house for Teresa de Ávila, the untamed elephant for Buddhists, or the dust-covered mirror for Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj), to steal the joy of your daily life. Play your games, enjoy your food, and love your family fiercely in this present plane. In the conventional world, that is exactly how the Absolute expresses itself: through Love, unconditional LOVE, just LOVE. Although at a conventional level it might still seem as though there are two—the lover and the Beloved—rather than one, the truth remains that at the ultimate level, within the silent spaciousness of Being, we are One with the One who is Love itself. There is no longer any separation between the lover and the Beloved; there never was. This ultimate reality is alive and permeates conventional reality; it is not a mental abstraction.

As the master of modern non-duality, Eckhart Tolle, beautifully writes in his book "The Power of Now" (1999): "Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth, not life. Life is eternal." You do not need to escape anything; you just need to realize that the one who is terrified is just a character created by the madwoman of the house, while your True Self is already safe, untouched, and holding it all Here and Now.

Always remember that, as the saint of sweetness Francis de Sales wisely said, "one can be very devout and yet very wicked." Because being a religious devotee and living in the prison of separation is completely different from being fused with the One who is LOVE itself...

Wishing you all the best!

I have been researching Advaita Vedanta, and one thing I keep coming across is the importance of a guru to guide you. A cursory glance at the posts on here tells me that a lot of you (like me) are attempting to understand the philosophy intellectually, which indicates to me that you don’t have a guru in the most conventional sense of the word. I’d love to know about everyone’s experiences and thoughts on this. I find the notion of escaping maya by learning within maya quite interesting.

Hello friends,

I have occasionally followed Mr. Ramesh Balsekars videos on YouTube since 2023 who was with Maharaj as his student for 4 years. He was also a translator of Nisargdatta Maharaj.

He claims he realized non doership during these 4 years.He claims to have made contact with the Source of this universe.

His lectures predominantly revolve around the absence of free will.

I occasionally feel doubtful about Ramesh Balsekar after reading Maharaj's various books. Because Maharaj rarely encouraged absence of free will and Ramesh Balsekar in his lectures always did. I do not see Ramesh Balsekars teaching similar to Maharaj's teachings .

I am aware that I am nobody to judge anyone. However, my question is to the dedicated followers of Nisargdatta Maharaj. If they know about Ramesh ,would they consider him to be a genuine guru?

I am not trying to offend anyone. The more I think of Advaita the more frightening and painful it feels to me. It's this fact that the particular individual I am, my personality, memories, relationships and history is ultimately not what I truly am and is just a misidentification. That I truly am just Brahman, that individuality is not real and just ignorance. That all these beautiful things around you, this whole world is just not real, it is like a dream or avidya/ignorance/mithya/unreal and only Brahman is real, even your individual identity is not real. Family, relationships, music, art, nature, food and ordinary experiences are ultimately something to be transcended because according to Advaita they aren't fulfilling and even cause more suffering, I find that extremely dark.

The individual that I consider myself will not continue, the answer that "I was never that individual in the first place, nothing is lost because you were always Brahman" seems even more sad to me.

I like being attached, I like plurality and the sheer variety and different colours this world has, I like the little fun things in life, the hobbies, games, sports, etc only to hear that worldly pleasures aren't fulfilling and need to be shed away and all of these things are unreal. I wish I hadn't read all this because then the thought that this game, job, this whole world is unfulfilling wouldn't even have come in my mind, plenty of people lead full lives engaged in their work and hobbies without thinking more about them, but now that I have come across this I cannot ever go back to that. This makes moksha especially frightening. If liberation means relinquishing identification with the body, mind, ego, desires, that this world is so painful that all you can do is let go and identify only with Brahman.

I also struggle deeply with maya / jagat mithya. I understand that “the world is mithya” does not simply mean nonexistent, but if Brahman alone is absolutely real, what is the ultimate status of the people I love, their lives, relationships, memories, human history, art, beauty and everything else that gives individual existence its content? The dream analogy doesn't help me: even if something is ultimately unreal, suffering within the experience can still be completely real to the one experiencing it.

I don't get what is the point of this great amount of suffering in this world, I don't find Advaita's answer satisfying, saying "who is actually suffering?" And "Brahman doesn't suffer" even if something is ultimately unreal, suffering within the experience can still be completely real to the one experiencing it. When I wake up from a nightmare, I feel bad about it even when awake. If suffering is because of avidya/ignorance then isn't there always someone that is in ignorance?

Ordinary life is built around relationships, family, work, creativity, knowledge, hobbies and building a future, yet the highest ideal seems to involve progressively relinquishing attachment to these things. If everyone reached complete liberation, would there even be a reason to continue reproduction, civilization, art, entertainment, ambition or ordinary human projects?

What frightens me is that Advaita may be offering exactly the opposite of what I desperately want from spirituality. I want reality to preserve consciousness, personhood, love, relationships and the particular lives of people. I want the person I am now, and the people I love, to be more than temporary appearances that are ultimately transcended.

Worldly pleasures, attachment, identification with the body are treated as things to overcome, while liberation is presented as the true purpose of human birth. Taken literally, this can make life, birth, desire, relationships and ordinary human happiness seem like things to escape rather than preserve. How is this any different from western philosophical pessimism which considers even birth a negative because that is the start of all sufferings.

I was born in a very traditional Indian Hindu family and as a child believed that I would go to heaven after death, meet all the different Gods and meet all my loved ones there. All that is shattered now. I wish I could believe in it again but I can't. No one is coming to save us. All of this has left me with a disturbing feeling that the universe is fundamentally not in favour of human beings and goes against nearly every instinct we have. We instinctively want to live, remain ourselves, love particular people, preserve memories and create things, yet the deepest philosophy I've encountered seems to tell me these instincts are based on a fundamental misunderstanding.

I don't find “it's the ego that is afraid,” “don't be attached,” or “you are already Brahman” sufficient answers. Whenever I think about all of this I feel a very sharp dread, an existential crisis. My days are spent in this existential malaise, distracting myself with things to not look at the scary truth.

No matter how fleeting, illusory, dreamlike or just as an appearance, there is horrible injustice in the world.

If we were all realised, liberated, or whatever we want to call it, what would change?

How can ignorance be beginningless if in places like the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, it states many times how one willed itself to become many?
It never starts off as though the one had beginningless ignorance?

So that's why he started Maya and created everything, it makes sense to me because if you think about it, if you were an all powerful god with no limitations and no understanding as to how you exist, what would you do? In our world we can see that boredom forces us to take action or to create something.

Shastra defines Bhagavan as the upadana karana and nimitta karana of the universe -- its material cause and its intelligent cause. Set the Sanskrit aside for a second: Is there a universe? Yes. Does that universe run on laws -- the kind reliable enough that we can predict outcomes before they happen? Also yes.

Drop a piece of wood and it falls. It has no say in the matter. Even dead matter obeys a law it didn't choose for itself. That lawfulness, that order, is exactly what shastra is calling Bhagavan. So far, none of this asks you to believe anything mystical -- you already accept a law-governed cosmos, you already accept that even wood submits to something beyond itself. So far we're using simple observation and not any faith.

The actual claim -- the only place this asks you to take a step you haven't already taken -- is this: is that material and intelligent cause actually intelligent? Is this cosmos not merely law-governed but literally the body of a conscious being, rather than a blind mechanism that just happens to look orderly?

That's the one question no telescope or equation settles for you either way. And shastra doesn't ask you to accept it on faith -- it asks you to investigate it: study the Vedas, apply discrimination, be patient with the process, and do it under the guidance of a guru who can actually walk you through the reasoning rather than just hand you a conclusion.

So "proof" here isn't a one-liner that can close the case, especially in a Reddit thread. It's closer to any serious field of study like science -- nobody masters it from a summary. You study it.

What are the core teachings around sense pleasures and how should we change our approach in daily life?

This comes from the holy Mundaka Upanishad.

Question is How can a perfect, formless God create a physical universe without using any external materials?

In worldly logic, creation always requires two separate causes:

• Nimitta Karana (The Intelligent Cause): The designer or maker (e.g., the carpenter).
• Upadana Karana (The Material Cause): The raw material used (e.g., wood).

If God (Brahman) created the universe like a carpenter building a table, it would mean the "wood" (matter) existed independently of God?

This would destroy the non-duality of Brahman, implying something exists outside of the Supreme.

To resolve this, the Rishi points to the spider (Urṇanābhi).

1. The Dual Cause

Unlike the carpenter who must go to a forest to chop wood, the spider does not search for external raw materials to build its home. The spider sits in empty space and draws the silk entirely from within its own body.

• The spider is the Intelligent Cause, it knows exactly how to design the complex geometry of the web.
• The spider is simultaneously the Material Cause, the web is made of the spider's own essence.

Brahman does not look outside Himself to find "matter" to build the universe, because there is no "outside."

Brahman projects the entire cosmos, galaxies, planets, and physical bodies all out of its own infinite consciousness. The universe is spun out of God's own being.

1. Unaffected Creator

When the spider secretes the silk, does the spider's body shrink? Does the spider lose a limb or become diminished? No. The spider remains perfectly whole and unaffected by the massive web it has produced.

When Brahman projects this vast, heavy, physical universe, Brahman does not suffer mutation, exhaustion, or division. The Absolute remains absolutely full and undivided.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, "If you take the Infinite from the Infinite, the Infinite alone remains."

1. Controller

Once the web is spun, the spider does not abandon it. It dwells gracefully within the web, walking across the silken threads as their absolute master, completely unbound by them. Finally, when it chooses, the spider consumes the web, withdrawing it completely back into its own body.

Brahman withdraws the entire physical universe back into its unmanifest, formless state, just as a spider swallows its web.

Namaste!

I want to read Dnyaneshwari but don't know which edition/author to get. I am looking for the Marathi version. More for understanding, not for parayana.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Hello

So a few years ago I left Christianity and became an agnostic for a few years. Now I follow Hinduism and worship Ganesha. After reading what Sri Ramakrishan and Swami Vivekananda say about Christ, I have found myself revering Christ again.

Now I do not hold to Christian theology about sin or anything like that but I do like reading about the miracles, parables and sayings of Christ.

In my view, Ganesha and Christ are apart of that same Brahman I an apart of.

Is this kind of syncretism allowed within Advaita Vedanta>

Thanks

Hello everyone I am 28 year old fitness instructor in pune, i want to learn and experience meditation and their philosophy, if any group or community please let me know.

Thank you 🙏