Advaita in Practical Life

What is Advaita-vaad in a very practical sense?

It is the ability to know that which is common in all things.

A gold-maker does not see bangles, or necklaces or ear-rings. He sees only gold. He will look at them and say 2-bhori, 1-bhori and 3-bhori on inspection. He has developed through training the ability find out the essence, which is gold in his field.

Similarly a doctor is able to find out the root cause of a disease from symptoms. And so on.

Better still are those people who can abstract out the essence from multiple domains of knowledge, and re-use and re-contextualize that knowledge in a different field.

Extracting the essence is the path of Advaita-vaad. There is a difference between knowing something and becoming one with the knowledge. Advaita teaches us how to relate to knowledge, rather than simply knowing.

This can be achieved through bhakti, karma and gyana margas simultaneously. Through repetition and sadhana, over time one develops the ability to visualize the essence of multiple non-related domains.

Over time, he reaches a state where he sees only the essence, and the entire world as a myriad projection of that essence. This imperishable reality is what is known as Brahman.

Developing this ability to extract the essence of any domain is immensely practical as we negotiate our way in this highly competitive world.

Advaita-vaad as a knowledge system is in a sense like artificial neural networks. A lot of sadhana or training is required. Lot of iterations. A model is generated, but it is like a black box. Noone understand why it works. Bhakti, karma and gyana work together seamlessly, but there is no simple causation.

But a well-trained neural net can produce wonderful real-world output. Similarly a person trained in the way of Advaita-vaad is supremely practical without getting bogged down by the trappings of "modernity".

While moksha or becoming Self-realized is the end-game, and that too for a small minority, for ordinary people like us, it is the journey of Advaita itself that can bring about a sea-change in our perspectives,personalities and approach to life. A change for the better.

Image: Pixabay

When did the Universe Begin? A Vedantic Response

When did the Universe begin? From where did it come? How did it come about? At some point, most humans ask this very fundamental question.

This is when people hear about the so-called Big Bang Theory. They learn that the age of the universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years. They learn that the universe started from a point known as singularity. They learn that time also has a beginning.

But then questions like what happened "before" Big Bang are meaningless. Time "began" with Big Bang, hence anything prior is meaningless.

Advaita Vedanta also addresses this issue in a very logical and intuitive way. And it also provides an elegant solution to this dilemma.

Swami Parthasarathy (Swamiji), who himself is master logician himself, explains that the question of when, where from and how are themselves meaningless. Hence any answer to a nonsensical question will be meaningless.

Why does he say this?

Time, space and causation are part of the universe. Their existence presupposes the existence of universe. That is, time, space and causation came into existence because of the universe.

When did the Universe begin, assumes that there was time before the universe itself - that is time before time itself.

Where did the universe come from assumes that there was space before the universe itself - that is, space before space itself.

How did the universe come about assumes that there was causation before the universe - that is, causation before causation itself.

Thinkers in cultures around the world eventually hit this road-block.

One way of solving this is by saying that there was a First Cause or Original Cause from which universe with its time, space and causation emerged.

They call this by the name God. What was before time itself? God. What was before space itself? God. What was before causation itself? God.

God is thus more a matter of faith than logic.

Advaita Vedanta avoids this trap brilliantly. Swamiji asks us to ponder on the questions themselves. He calls them meaningless questions. And in order to prove that the questions are meaningless, he takes the example of dream.

Imagine that you are dreaming. When you are dreaming, you are in a dream universe. Now imagine that you ask the same questions - when, why and from where inside the dream. You will not be able to answer the question as long as you are within the dream universe. As you will hit the same logical road-block as above.

But once you wake up, you realize that the questions were truly meaningless, in the context of the dream universe.

Similarly, there is a state beyond this universe. When you transcend this universe by "waking up", you realize that even this universe was a dream, and hence the questions were indeed meaningless.

Wise men and realized people, call the other state, Brahman or turiya. Hence to truly answer the questions of why, when and from where, we must attain Brahma-gyana.

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Note: We have Vedanta Classes every Wednesday in Saltlake, Kolkata from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Our course Acharya is the learned and brilliant Sri (Dr) Subhashish Chakrabarti, a graduate from Vedanta Academy.

People are most welcome to join our classes. Please reach out to me, and I will share the details.

Featured Image: Ofthebox

Why is the bull so venerated in Hindu culture?

Indus seals have bulls. Nandi is the guardian deity of Kailasha. Shri Krishna refers to Arjuna as भरतर्षभ ( bharata-ṛiṣhabha), which means the bull like one belonging to Bharata clan.

Why become bull-like? What is its significance? How is it relevant today?

Today our learned Acharya, Shri (Dr) Subhashish Chakrabarti, gave a wonderful explanation during our Bhagavad Gita class, which I am presenting below to the best of my ability.

A bull is a hard-working animal which works with a dogged determination. In return it gets as well as expects very little. From a bulls point of view, its philosophy is high input, low output.

This is completely contrary to modern consumerist society/ engineering approach of low input and maximum output. While the latter may work successfully in the physical realm, when it comes to character development and spiritual realm, a lot of very hard work will seemingly produce very nominal output.

But it is essential. And so it must be done.

Karma must be done doggedly with strong determination during the contemplative/ introspective phase of spiritual ascension to purify ourselves and to equip ourselves to move to the next level.

At a more mundane level, it is the attitude of a bull, rishabha which gets the "drudge-work" of any project or work or study completed.

Note: People in north/ east Kolkata are most welcome to join our Bhagavad Gita class of Vedanta Institute Kolkata every Sunday morning at 9:00 to 10:30 AM in Baisakhi Mall, Saltlake. Please contact me and I will share the details.

Image: Krishna, the bull who walked around India 4 times (IndiaMike)