Advaita Vedanta

Advaita Vedanta is an ancient Hindu philosophy.  It is essentially a distillation of the teachings of the Upanishads.  It sets out a path to achieve liberation (Skt.  Mochksa or Moksa) in a single lifetime.  It emphasises non-duality as its root belief.  Some say it contains teachings similar to Mahayana Buddhism although not all agree with this assertian.

 Advaita Vedanta is a new perspective for me.  I’ve known about it for some time, but didn’t really commence my exploration until I happened across a video by scholar and potter, Rupert Spira, The Nature of Consciousness, SAND US 2016.  What impressed me was Rupert’s extraordinary calmness in the delivery of his presentation and depth of knowledge about awareness.

The World of Duality

I’ve already talked about the hard problem of consciousness.  In the Western view of the world there are two essential elements:  Mind and Matter.  Matter is the primary element.  How consciousness emerges from matter is a perennial question and science struggles to answer this question.  Consciousness is not an objective phenomenon.  Some claim it is an epiphenomenon, and an illusion created by chemical and electrical activity in the brain. I am again reminded of the Sean Carroll debate with B. Alan Wallace when Carroll claimed that everything is an emergent property of matter.  

Science asserts that all that is true must be independently verifiable.  If it cannot be verified in multiple experiments then it probably is not true.  However, the mind mediates all experience.  All that we know, we know through our mind.  And according to Adviata Vedanta all experience occurs in space and time.  If personal experience is all that we can really know then all our observations are subjective.  The name for the experiencer is “I”.  I am the mind that experiences.

The Nature of Mind

“I” refers to the knower.  The knower is perhaps made up of two elements; the knowledge of experience or content and the essence of mind which is consciousness or awareness. I know I am aware.  And this awareness is the essential element of consciousness.  In meditation, and any path toward inner insight, the mind seeks to understand its own nature. 

There is constancy in our experience of self.  I feel somehow, that I have always been, and always will be the same person.  Even though, at another level, I know this to be untrue.  The self is like a river through which a current flows.  Ever changing from one moment to the next.  But in Advaita Vedanta the ‘knowing’ or ‘awareness’ never changes.  It always remains the same:

 “In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears.  All there is is me, all there is is mine.  Before all beginnings, after all endings -- I AM.  All has its being in me, in the ‘I am’, that shines in every living being.  Even not-being is unthinkable without me.  Whatever happens, I must be there to witness it.” 

Nisargadatta, Sri Maharaj.  I Am That.  Unknown Publisher – extracted from manuscript. 1981. P 5.

According to Sri Nisargadatta it is awareness that makes consciousness possible.  Being conscious of being conscious is underpinned by awareness. Awareness is like the light the shines through consciousness.  It is the sparkle of the universe itself.  When you look out and see a bright stare shining you realise that our consciousness is like that.

 Vedanta and the Body

In Vedanda, the knowledge that consciousness pre-dates the body forms part of the teachings.  It (consciousness) has always been and will always be.  Over identification with the body or even the mind-body complex is the root of negative karma.  And whilst adherents of Advaita Vedanta do not use the word “samsara” that is effectively what they are describing.  The body is the container for the “I”.  Consciousness is bound to the body during each incarnation.  It depends on the body as its home.  And yet when Nisargadatta was diagnosed with cancer in 1980 he rejoiced.  He had dissociated from a sense of being with the body and existed on different level.

 In Advaita Vedanta (as in other Hindu Traditions) there are three bodies:[10]

1.  The Causal Body – this body is the seed or causation of the two other bodies (Subtle and Gross).  It is characterised by emptiness.  Yet it contains impressions from past experience.

2.  The Subtle Body – this body is composed of the organs of perception (nose, eyes, mouth, ears and skin); the organs of action (arms, legs, speech, anus and genitals); the organs of breath (respiration, evacuation, circulation, digestion and other physical processes); manas and buddhi (intellect and discerning wisdom).

3. The Gross Body – This is the total physical body which does the things that bodies do.  It is composed of many parts and carries karma from the past (a bit like epigenetics).

 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Bodies_Doctrine

Individuals who identify primarily with the Gross Body are more inclined toward a materialist world view.  Whereas those who are focused on the Subtle Body are more likely to be focused on bodily processes such as ingestion and respiration.

1.5    States of Consciousness

According to the Advaita Vedanta tradition the mind is active awareness and sustained consciousness.  It is not an entity in its own right:

 “The world is a condensation in mind, and mind is the activity of consciousness.”

 Spira, Rupert.  The Nature of Consciousness:  Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter.  Sahaja, Oxford 2017. P 119.

The three subsidiary states of consciousness; waking, dreaming and sleeping, are all variants of the one underlying consciousness.  They are partial expressions of the infinite potential consciousness.  In waking, the “I” manifests and we are most aware.  Consciousness shines in its brilliance.  In sleep, awareness is withdrawn but the same underlying consciousness remains.  Perceptions are less defined. 

From the proceeding writings we have seen that all we can really know occurs within the field of experience.  All experience occurs within the mind and consciousness.  Experience provides us with the contents of consciousness.  Science has no way of studying this memory or the content of consciousness.  Neural correlates are not consciousness.  We might see the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) of a dream on an MRI. But the NCC will not tell us about the contents of the dream. Consciousness is underpinned by awareness.  And only awareness can study awareness.  Any discipline needs to understand and have access to the phenomenon it wishes to study and only consciousness or awareness has access to consciousness or awareness. 

Spira, Rupert.  The Nature of Consciousness:  Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter.  Sahaja, Oxford 2017.