Ādi Shankara - Advaita Vedanta

Today's the eve of Ādi Shankarā's birthday. He dates 788 AD to 820 AD.....the dates feel weird to even write. It's like the mind can't immediately calculate how long ago that was.

Ādi Shankarācharya ...even as I say it, I feel the awe.......of Advaita, the concept, the philosophy, him. It's Ādi Shankarācharya who gave us the essence of the core teachings of Vedanta, Non Dualism or Advaita as we know it today. His works form the foundation of Advaita. He has written several commentaries on the Upanishads, the Brahmasūtras and the Bhagavadgita. In fact he is said to have written 300 commentaries, and all within the 32 years of his short life. The most important of Shankarācharya's works are his commentaries on the Brahmasutras, the Brahmasūtrabhāshya considered the core of Shankara's perspective on Advaita, and Bhaja Govindam, a poem written in praise of Govinda or Lord Krishna, a Sanskrit poem that forms the center of the Bhakti movement and is said to epitomize the Advaita Vedanta philosophy. It is believed that he wrote all these treatises before the age of sixteen.

At a personal level, he was huge influence on my own belief system. It's through him that I started my journey of Atheism..... Spiritualism...all that deep stuff. Advaita is still core to my belief system.

When I did Advaita in college, I was so influenced by his writings, that I took a private course in Sanskrit so I could read the Brahmasūtrabhāshya in Sanskrit. I remember sitting on my terrace late at night learning the Bhaja Govindam by rote. Sounds nuts, but I also made a trip to Kāladi, his birthplace in Kerala because I just had this intense need to connect. Yes, it ran that deep. So today, I just had to pay tribute. Though one aspect of it is puzzling. No one is sure of his time of existence, forget the year, not even the century is agreed upon. Some say 788 AD, while others believe it is 509 BC and some even 44 BC, so I wonder where a date came from :)

Kāladi - Ādi Shankarācharya's birthplace

Vedanta has been interpreted in three major ways, Dvaita, Vishishta Advaita and Advaita. They center around the concept of Brahman (the ultimate reality) and Atman (the Individual self)

Dvaita, founded by Madhavacharya, was a strong religious system which believes in the dichotomy of the creator and the created; God and Humanity as distinct and unrelated entities. Brahman here is the purely personal omniscient god. Vishnu, as an avatar, controls the world and our duty is to worship him. Dualistic philosophy is simple and clear. There is you and there is god, he is superior to you, and you surrender to him.

There was then the Vishishta Advaita of Ramanuja, which still talks of two entities, but where the world is not separate from Brahman, it is formed as part of it. Brahman is still omniscient and has created the world out of himself. The best analogy to describe this is the sea and the waves.The sea is Brahman and the waves are the world. Practice is the same, Vishnu, or his avatars, is God, man worships him and he will grant deliverance.

Advaita on the other hand is non dualism ( a dvaita)...complete Monism. Brahmn and the Ātman are the same, its all One. The analogy used is that of a rope (reality) and a snake (maya). We see the rope think its a snake, the fear, the reaction, the belief ...its all real , but its Maya. Once we know its a rope we no longer see the snake in it, and we see the rope for what it is, a rope. 

The devotional element of Advaita, which is Isvara, is a concept of God as a means to connect to the ultimate reality; a tool used by a finite mind in its effort to grasp the infinite concept of Brahmn. The Brahman of Advaita is an impersonal entity, and the practice of religion is an intellectual practice, a religion of the mind. Bhaja Govindam says that best. A long long poem. Alternatively, is the mahakavya that says it with equal eloquence....Aham Brahmā Smi.