Tag: Mandukya Karika

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Advaitic Inquiries

What Does It Mean To Be Enlightened?

This post is a response to a question from a friend who’s seriously exploring what enlightenment actually is. It’s a good question — and a rare one — because most people, like I did for fifteen years, chase enlightenment as if it’s some mystical high, a state of bliss, or a mind-blowing shift in consciousness.

But here, I’m cutting through all that.

No poetry. No metaphors. No smoke and mirrors.

I’m answering the question head-on — in plain, precise language that doesn’t flinch and doesn’t hide behind spiritual jargon. And what I offer here stands up to every form of rational scrutiny.

If you’re looking for clarity, not fantasy, this is for you.

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Advaitic Inquiries

When The Elephant Vanishes: Seeing Through Maya

In the timeless tradition of Advaita Vedanta, the pursuit of truth begins with a radical inquiry: Is what I perceive truly what is? This blog, based on an insightful article by Vivek, a member of the NEEV Community for Self-Inquiry and Sustainability, explores this very question through a powerful allegory—the story of a wooden elephant mistaken for the real.

At the heart of this reflection lies the fundamental Advaitic principle of adhyāsa, or superimposition. The root problem of human suffering is the superimposition (adhyāsa) of the non-Self (body, mind, world) upon the Self (pure consciousness), and vice versa. Just as one mistakes a rope for a snake or a wooden elephant for a real one, so too does the ignorant mind mistake the transient world/non-Self for ultimate reality/Self.

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Advaitic Inquiries Witness Stage

Understanding “Consciousness is Everything”: Journal of a 15 yr Old – Part2/2: The World Was Never Created (Ajativada)

In Part I of this article series I discussed the journal of a young, 15 yr old student who studies in my Advaita Study Group. In his journal, he describes how he has conceptually understood that Consciousness is the Ultimate Reality and how all the phenomena we see in the world is just a projection of Consciousness which does not actually affect Consciousness. Further, in his journal he has also described, even though he is Consciousness, it is actually the Lord who is willing the actions of all Jivas and creatures of the world. The Lord is a sort of supercomputer, while the individual minds/Jivas are just receptors of the thoughts and actions willed by the Lord. In Part 1 I gave the whole of my attention to show how his journal had flashes of genius in it, uncannily describing the journey of a seeker in Advaita towards Self Realization as described by the four Mahavakyas. In this article, I would like to delve into the highest peak of Advaita: Ajativada. This is the doctrine propounded by Gaudapada in Mandukya Karika. It reveals something absolutely unbelievable: in the Absolute sense, the world, including oneself is devoid of changes or mutations like birth, growth, death etc. as also it is devoid of all duality. All this is verily Consciousness/Awareness alone. CREATION NEVER HAPPENED. Consciousness never gave birth to any world of Jiva(individuals)-Jagat(world of objects)-Isvara(creator). They are all nothing but imaginations of a mind operating in Maya/illusion. I show how even this was anticipated by my student in his journal.