Tag: religion

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Advaitic Inquiries Comparative Advaita

Do Advaita and Buddhism Point to the Same Truth?

This blog explores whether Advaita Vedānta and Buddhism ultimately point to the same truth. Through a thoughtful dialogue, it traces the meeting ground between Nāgārjuna’s emptiness (śūnyatā) and Gaudapāda’s non-origination (ajāti). Both dissolve all dualities—self and other, subject and object—revealing an unborn reality beyond thought. Yet a tension remains: Buddhism denies any enduring consciousness, while Advaita proclaims consciousness alone as the timeless reality.

As the conversation deepens, these apparent opposites begin to merge. When both experiencer and experienced vanish, is “emptiness” truly different from “consciousness”? The article suggests that Gaudapāda, writing before sectarian walls were built, may have seen the essential convergence between these paths.

Ultimately, this piece—arising from a dialogue with Claude AI—reflects the timeless exchange between Buddhist and Advaitin inquiry, showing how both, when followed to their limit, dissolve into the same wordless recognition of non-dual truth beyond affirmation or negation.

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Advaitic Inquiries

The Wild and the Wise: Finding a Path for Our Anxious World

Despite inhabiting the most technologically advanced age in human history, we are more restless, lonely, and anxious than ever before.

This article traces the deep resonance between the hunter-gatherer’s way of living lightly upon the earth and the Upanishadic seer’s awakening to the boundless Self. Early humans moved with reverence through forests, rivers, and skies, while the Vedic sages themselves withdrew into the forests to seek the eternal truth beyond birth and death. But with the rise of industrial civilization, humanity drifted from both — trading simplicity for consumption, and inner freedom for restless striving.

The way forward is to weave these two great streams together: the outer simplicity of the forager and the inner realization of the sage. In their fusion lies a path toward wholeness, sustainability, and true freedom.

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History of Advaita

The Value of Shankara in the Tradition of Advaita – As a Philosopher or Commentator?

The tradition of Advaita Vedanta as a means of liberation is synonymous with the name of Shankara, not because, as many people erroneously believe, he was it’s founder, instead, Shankara’s fame and his legendary status in the annals of Advaita Vedanta are for reasons more complex, which I shall be exploring in this article. I am going to examine whether the main contribution of Shankara was really as an original philosopher who propounded new ideas, or, was his essential contribution more as an Upanishadic theologian, scholar, commentator and interpreter? I shall also examine other historical factors that led to the legendary status reserved for Shankara today, which may not have all to do with his scholarly skills.

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Advaitic Inquiries

Samsara is Nirvana – The Perfection of the Imperfection

Social media feeds feel like storm warnings—flashing red, relentless. In every scroll, 2025 is cast as a cursed year. It’s easy to feel buried under the nonstop flood of headlines and social media updates. The news can stir up strong emotions—worry, anger, frustration, dread—and it’s easy to get caught in thoughts about how wrong things are or how they should be different. The world can seem more terrifying than ever. However, the view of the world is different for those who have non-dual vision.

Using very simple analysis, in this article, I want to explore this paradoxical clarity of enlightenment—a state of mind that perceives perfection and wholeness even in the apparent imperfection and chaos of the world with the hope that such an exploration can inspire people to seek the same vision and ultimately free themselves from suffering.

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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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History of Advaita

The Upanishads and the Axial Age: From Sacred Fire to Inner Light – Part 1

In an age when old rituals faltered under the weight of expanding empires, urban complexity, and moral uncertainty, a quiet revolution unfolded in the forests of ancient India. The Upanishads, composed between 800 and 200 BCE, did not merely extend the Vedic tradition—they dismantled its core assumptions. Sacrifice gave way to self-inquiry. The gods of the altar were replaced by the questioner within.

This shift wasn’t isolated. Across Eurasia, from Greece to China, prophets and philosophers began asking not what to worship, but how to live. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers called it the Axial Age—a spiritual pivot in world history. The Upanishads are India’s profound answer to that moment. Where others turned outward to law, ethics, or reason, India turned inward—seeking the divine not in temples or sacrifices, but in consciousness itself.

This article argues that the Upanishads are more than scripture; they are a civilizational rebirth. In Part 1, we map the Axial Age across cultures. In Part 2, we enter the Indian mind, where the fire of ritual became the light of introspection—and where the self (Ātman) was revealed to be not separate from, but identical with, ultimate reality (Brahman).

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Advaitic Inquiries

The Upanishads: The Oldest Voice of Nondual Philosophy – Compared to Other Nondual Traditions

Before Plato, before Laozi, before the Buddha, there were the Upanishads. In forest clearings across ancient India, long before the rise of formal philosophy or organised religion, sages sat in silence and asked the only question that ever really mattered: What am I? From that silence emerged a thunderbolt of insight—that the self and the cosmos are not two. The oldest surviving texts to declare this are not speculative essays or scriptures of belief. They are the Upanishads: bold, spare, poetic, and uncompromising in their message. Ātman is Brahman. The soul is the world. The knower is the known. And this insight, written more than two thousand years ago, remains the earliest—and perhaps the purest—expression of nonduality ever recorded.

This article sets out to show that the Upanishads are not just ancient—they are the clearest, most uncompromising voice of nonduality in human thought. By placing them in conversation with the many traditions that followed, we begin to see their singular force. In the light of comparison, their purity sharpens, like a mountain revealed when the mist lifts.

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Advaitic Inquiries Pre-Witness Stage

Advaita, Capitalism And The Red Pill Of Truth

In this post I talk about why the understanding of Capitalism and uprooting it from one’s life psychologically and physically is essential for the study of Advaita and attaining it’s goal of liberation, especially for householder Advaitins.

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Psycho-Philosophical Inquiries

The evolution of self : really evolution, or perpetual conflict?

Advancement of man is seen as evolution of self. In this article I show that since self is actually a fragment – a bundle of knowledge which is limited, no amount of evolution – of accumulation of knowledge – can make the limited go beyond limitations. And being limted and fragmentary, the self shall always divide man against man and man against nature.