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Advaita Vedanta ; Sanskrit: अद्वैत वेदान्त, IAST: is the Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline in addition to experience, in addition to the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta, a tradition of interpretation of the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gitā collectively so-called as the Prasthanatrayi. The term Advaita literally "non-secondness", but commonly rendered as "nondualism", and often equated with monism transmitted to the idea that Brahman alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusory grouping maya of Brahman. In this view, the experiencing self jivĀtman is in reality not different from Ātman-Brahman, the highest Self and ultimate Reality, and jivatman or individual self is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of obvious individual bodies.

In the Advaita tradition, moksha liberation from suffering and rebirth is attained through recognizing this illusoriness of the phenomenal world and disidentification from the body-mind complex and the picture of 'doership', and acquiring vidyā cognition of one's true identity as Atman-Brahman, self-luminous svayam prakāśa awareness or Witness-consciousness. Upanishadic statements such as tat tvam asi, "that you are," destroy the ignorance avidyā regarding one's true identity by revealing that jivĀtman is non-different from immortal Brahman. While Shankara emphasized that, since Brahman is ever-present, Brahman-knowledge is immediate and requires no 'action', that is, striving and effort, the Advaita tradition also prescribes elaborate preparatory practice, including yogic samadhi and contemplation on the mahavakyas, posing a paradox which is also recognized in other spiritual disciplines and traditions.

Advaita Vedānta adapted philosophical concepts from Buddhism, giving them a Vedantic basis and interpretation, and was influenced by, and influenced, various traditions and texts of Indian philosophy, The 8th century Vedic scholar and teacher acharya Adi Shankara is loosely regarded as the near prominent exponent of the Advaita Vedānta tradition, though his early influence has been questioned, as his prominence started to earn shape only centuries later in the 14th century, with the ascent of Sringeri matha and it's jagadguru Vidyaranya Madhava, 14th cent. in the Vijayanagara Empire. While Shankara did not embrace Yoga, the Advaita Vedānta tradition in medieval times explicitly incorporated elements from the yogic tradition and texts like the Yoga Vasistha and the Bhagavata Purana, culminating in Swami Vivekananda's full embrace and propagation of Yogic samadhi as an Advaita means of cognition and liberation. In the 19th century, due to the influence of Vidyaranya's Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, the importance of Advaita Vedānta was over-emphasized by Western scholarship, and Advaita Vedānta came to be regarded as the paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality, despite the numerical a body or process by which power to direct or establish or a particular part enters a system. of theistic Bhakti-oriented religiosity. In advanced times, Advaita viewsin various Neo-Vedānta movements.

Reality and ignorance

Classical Advaita Vedānta states that all reality and everything in the professionals such(a) as lawyers and surveyors world has its root in Brahman, which is unchanging Consciousness. To Advaitins, there is no duality between a Creator and the created universe. all objects, all experiences, all matter, all consciousness, all awareness are somehow also this one fundamental reality Brahman. Yet, the knowing self has various experiences of reality during the waking, dream and dreamless states, and Advaita Vedānta acknowledges and admits that from the empirical perspective there are many distinctions. Advaita explains this by postulating different levels of reality, and by its theory of errors anirvacaniya khyati.

Shankara proposes three levels of reality, using sublation as the ontological criterion:

Absolute and relative reality are valid and true in their respective contexts, but only from their respective specific perspectives. John Grimes explains this Advaita doctrine of absolute and relative truth with the example of light and darkness. From the sun's perspective, it neither rises nor sets, there is no darkness, and "all is light". From the perspective of a grownup on earth, sun does rise and set, there is both light and darkness, not "all is light", there are relative shades of light and darkness. Both are valid realities and truths, assumption their perspectives. Yet, they are contradictory. What is true from one an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. of view, states Grimes, is not from another. To Advaita Vedānta, this does not mean there are two truths and two realities, but it only means that the same one Reality and one Truth is explained or experienced from two different perspectives.

As they developed these theories, Advaita Vedānta scholars were influenced by some ideas from the Nyaya, Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy. These theories have not enjoyed universal consensus among Advaitins, and various competing ontological interpretations have flowered within the Advaita tradition.

Ātman IAST: ātman, Sanskrit: आत्मन् is the "real self" or "essence" of the individual. it is caitanya, Pure Consciousness, a consciousness, states Sthaneshwar Timalsina, that is "self-revealed, self-evident and self-aware svaprakashata," and, states Payne, "in some way permanent, eternal, absolute or unchanging." it is for self-existent awareness, limitless and non-dual. It is "asubjectivity, or a unity of consciousness through all the specific states of individuated phenomenality." Ātman, states Eliot Deutsch, is the "pure, undifferentiated, supreme power to direct or develop of awareness", it is more than thought, it is a state of being, that which is conscious and transcends subject-object divisions and momentariness. According to Ram-Prasad, "it" is not an object, but "the irreducible essence of being [as] subjectivity, rather than an objective self with the classification of consciousness."

According to Shankara, it is self-evident and "a matter not requiring any proof" that Atman, the 'I', is 'as different as light is from darkness' from non-Atman, the 'you' or 'that', the material world whose characteristics are mistakingly superimposed on Atman, resulting in notions as "I am this" and "This is mine." One's real self is not the constantly changing body, not the desires, not the emotions, not the ego, nor the dualistic mind, but the introspective, inwardly self-conscious "on-looker" saksi, which is in reality totally disconnected from the non-Atman.

The jivanatman or individual self is a mere reflection of singular Atman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies. It is "not an individual intended of consciousness," but the same in each person and identical to the universal everlasting Brahman, a term used interchangeable with Atman.

Atman is often translated as soul, though the two concepts differ significantly, since "soul" includes mental activities, whereas "Atman" solely refers to detached witness-consciousness.

Advaita posits three states of consciousness, namely waking jagrat, dreaming svapna, deep sleep suṣupti, which are empirically experienced by human beings, and correspond to the Three Bodies Doctrine:

Advaita also posits the fourth state of Turiya, which some describe as pure consciousness, the background that underlies and transcends these three common states of consciousness. Turiya is the state of liberation, where states Advaita school, one experiences the infinite ananta and non-different advaita/abheda, that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended. According to Candradhara Sarma, Turiya state is where the foundational Self is realized, it is measureless, neither cause nor effect, all pervading, without suffering, blissful, changeless, self-luminous, real, immanent in all things and transcendent. Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with programs and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the required becomes one, they are the Jivanmukta.

Advaita traces the foundation of this ontological theory in more ancient Sanskrit texts. For example, chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the "four states of consciousness" as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep. One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads.

For the Advaita tradition, consciousness is svayam prakāśa, "self-luminous," which means that "self is pure awareness by nature." According to Dasgupta, it is "the near fundamental concept of the Vedanta." According to Jonardon Ganeri, the concept was present by the Buddhist philosopher Mahasanghika school. According to T. R. V. Murti,

The an essential or characteristic factor of something abstract. to be reached is a foundational consciousness that is unconditional, self-evident, and immediate svayam-prakāśa. It is that to which everything is presented, but is itself no presentation, that which knows all, but is itself no object. The self should not be confused with the contents and states which it enjoys and manipulates. if we have to administer an account of it, we can describe it only as what it is not, for any positive explanation of it would be possible only if it could be proposed an thing of observation, which from the nature of the case it is not. We "know" it only as we withdraw ourselves from the body with which we happen to be identified, in this transition.

According to Advaita Vedānta, Brahman is the true Self, consciousness, awareness, and the only Reality Sat. Brahman is Paramarthika Satyam, "Absolute Truth" or absolute Reality. It is That which is unborn and unchanging, and immortal. Other than Brahman, everything else, including the universe, material objects and individuals, are ever-changing and therefore maya. Brahma is "not sublatable", which means it cannot be superseded by a still higher reality:

the true Self, pure consciousness [...] the only Reality sat, since It is untinged by difference, the mark of ignorance, and since It is the one thing that is not sublatable".

In Advaita, Brahman is the substrate and cause of all changes. Brahman is considered to be the material cause and the efficient cause of all that exists. The Brahma Sutras I.1.2 state that Brahman is:

...that from which the origination, subsistence, and dissolution of this universe proceed.

Advaita's Upanishadic roots state Brahman's atttributes to be Sat-cit-ānanda, "true being-consciousness-bliss," or "Eternal Bliss Consciousness". A distinction is made between nirguna Brahman, formless Brahman, and saguna Brahman, Brahman with form, that is, Ishvara, God. Nirguna Brahman is undescrible, and the Upanishadic neti neti 'not this, not that' or 'neither this, nor that' negates all conceptualizations of Brahman.

Avidyā is a central tenet of Shankara's Advaita, and became the main target of Ramanuja's criticism of Shankara. In Shankara's view, avidyā is adhyasa, "the superimposition of the atttributes of one thing upon another." As Shankara explains in the Adhyasa-bhasya, the first structure to the Brahmasutrabhasya:

Owing to an absence of discrimination, there maintains a natural human behaviour in the form of 'I am this' or 'This is mine'; this is avidya. It is a superimposition of the attributes of one thing on another. The ascertainment of the nature of the real entity by separating the superimposed thing from it is vidya knowledge, illumination.

Due to avidya, we're steeped in loka drsti, the empirical view. From the beginning we only perceive the empirical world of multiplicity, taking it to be the only and true reality. Due to avidyā there is ignorance, or nescience, of the real Self, Atman-Brahman, mistakingly identifying the Self with the body-mind complex. With parmartha drsti ignorance is removed nd vidya is acquired, and the Real, distinctionless Brahman is perceived as the True reality.