Advaita

In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

God-Loving in the classical Persian Poetry (in Hungarian).

Publication: Tempevölgy. Kultúra - Művészet - Tudomány (Quarterly) IX. évf. 3 sz. (Vol 9 Nr. 3 = 3/2017) pp. 83–92.

Location: Balatonfüred

More Info: Original version of the lecture

Event Date: March 18, 2016

Organization: Balatonfüred Városért Közalapítvány

ISSN: 1789-9265

ŚUDDHĀDVAITA – An Overview vis a vis KEVALĀDVAITA
Abstract
sarvaṁ khalvidaṁ brahma tajjalāniti śānta upāsīta – propounds the Cāndogya Upanishad, establishing the doctrine of Advaita, interpretations of which by the founder Acharyas of various philosophical traditions have differences varying in subtlety. This paper attempts an overview of Vāllabha Vedānta known as Śuddhādvaita, where Sri Vallabhācārya ji propounded Sākār Brahmavād, establishing the ekamevādvitiya Parabrahma as the Abhinnanimittopādāna Kāraṇa of the entire creation. His Avikṛtpariṇāmavāda differs from Sri Śankarācārya's vivartavāda in the sense that Brahma as well as Jīva and Jagat are Satya, as such the manifest reality is not simply an illusion. By the sankalpa “Ekohaṁ bahusyāṁ”, Brahman manifests in many names and forms simply to rejoice, not being subject to avidyā or māyā. While discussing various tenets of Vāllabha Philosophy such as satkāryavāda, āvirbhāva-tirobhāva vāda and more, this presentation highlights many common points as well as differences with respect to Kevalādvaita of Sri Śankarācārya. A major point of such disagreement being the nature of Ishwara. - While Sri Śankarācārya recognises various names and forms of the divine as the means to facilitate Upāsana before finally recognising oneself as Brahma , Sri Vallabhācārya  substantiates  on Parabrahma being Viruddhadharmāśrayi and hence Saguṇa, and Sākār Brahman being just as Supreme as Nirguṇa Nirākāra Brahman dwelling in the entire creation. Thus, in the realm of practice, in Vāllabha doctrine, Jñāna is a means to Bhakti and a limb thereof, rather than Bhakti or Upāsanā being a means to finally acquire Mokśa by jñānamārga. Here, Nirupādhika bhakti is not just means but the end in itself, uniting a Jīva to Kṛṣṇa.
* * * * *

This study is my midterm paper for Patañjali's Yogasūtra class. It explores Patañjali's system of samādhi as explained in Madhusūdana Sarasvatī's commentary of the Bhagavadgītā, chapter six, verse fifteen. In particular, it investigates the way Madhusudana, one of the great Advaita Vedānta theologians, interprets Patañjali's system of samādhi as in accordance with the Advaita Vedānta practice to liberation.

This paper analyses how Vidyāraṇya, a fourteenth-century Advaita Vedāntin, reads and re-tells life stories of exemplary sages to determine and establish duty, or dharma, on the Advaita Vedāntic path to liberation. Drawing on his Jīvanmuktiviveka, I show how Vidyāraṇya’s extrapolative, exegetical approach to life stories is shaped by hermeneutical concerns of the Dharmaśāstra tradition, which entails a narrative theology sensitive to the details of canonical life stories. In particular, the paper closely examines Vidyāraṇya’s interpretation of episodes in the life of Yājñavalkya from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; Rāma, Śuka, Janaka, and Bhagīratha from the ‘Laghuyogavāsiṣṭha’; as well as the story of Nidāgha from the Viṣṇupurāṇa. I demonstrate how Vidyāraṇya’s reading of these narratives, including his diagnostic assessment of the soteriological status of the protagonists, engenders and authorises orthopraxy on the path to liberation. While setting out these issues, I pay particular attention to the way in which narrative accounts serve not only as theologically rich sources from which praxeological and theological positions are determined but also as examples in Vidyāraṇya’s argumentation.

Delivered in 2015 at the AAR. Journal of Dharma Studies, October 2018, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp 11–30.

Downloadable version with pages numbers available here: 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs42240-018-0005-5.pdf

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42240-018-0005-5

The present essay is an attempt to draw a picture of the personality and
the motives of the anonymous author of the Mokṣopāya for writing his
work, through a compilation of scattered information that he left behind
in the received text, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

There has been a long-standing academic debate on the religious orientation of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886), one of the leading religious figures of modern India. In the light of his teachings, it is possible to accept that Ramakrishna's ideas were Vedantic, albeit not in a sectarian or exclusive way. This article explores the question of where exactly to place him in the chequered history of Vedantic ideas. It points out that Ramakrishna repeatedly referred to different states of consciousness while explaining the difference in the attitudes towards the Divine. This is the basis of his harmonization of the different streams within Vedanta. Again, it is also the basis of his understanding of the place of sakti. He demonstrated that, as long as one has I-consciousness, one is operating within the jurisdiction of sakti, and has to accept sakti as real. On the other hand, in the state of samadhi, which is the only state in which the I-consciosuness disappears, there is neither One nor many. The article also shows that, while Ramakrishna accepted all of the different views within Vedanta, he was probably not as distant from the Advaita Vedanta philosopher Adi Samkara as he has been made out to be.

"Os versos no Satasloki focam nitidamente nos principais ensinamentos de todas as Upanishads. Para os estudantes avançados de Vedanta, essa obra servirá como um auxílio para a reflexão. Para os menos avançados, será um bom guia para entender as sutilezas e nuances do Vedanta Advaita. Alguns dos versos contêm instruções muito úteis sobre quais qualidades se deve cultivar para obter progresso espiritual."

This short article shows where and how Śaṅkara disagrees with canonical texts of Vedānta philosophy. A detailed analysis and correction, based on Sanskrit grammar and philology, follow each of Śaṅkara’s wrong interpretations. Every student and every professor of Vedānta should read this. At the end, I express my opinion of Buddhism in comparison to Vedānta.

In this chapter James Madaio draws out salient ways that emotional experiences are accounted for within Vidyāraṇya’s fourteenth century Jīvanmuktiviveka, an important work in medieval Advaita Vedānta.  The chapter demonstrates how attachment or involvement with emotional states is considered as constitutive of saṃsāra, and how this problematic condition serves as the alterity for the one who is liberated-while-living (jīvanmukta). While pursuing key analyses and metaphors that contrast the “tainting” and “burning” of emotional states with the uninvolved “coolness” of the jīvanmukta, Madaio also shows how the activation of embodied conditioning—or, broadly, vāsanā—may overcome the stability of non-dual knowing in sages who are enlightened but not yet perfectly liberated.

In Chapter 6 James Madaio explores the transformative strategies that underpin some of the stories and dialogues in the Yogavāsiṣṭha. The central framing story of the Yogavāsiṣṭha depicts a conversation between the enlightened preceptor Vasiṣṭha and the dejected prince Rāma. Vasiṣṭha repeatedly instructs Rāma about the nature of non-dual reality through a series of fantastical narratives, many of which feature dialogical encounters. Madaio argues that certain characters in these narratives mirror Rāma’s condition, while also reflecting the state of the reader. Within this mirroring context, Madaio contends that the story-worlds of the Yogavāsiṣṭha simulate in the reader methods of dialogic inquiry or vicāra, which probe the nature of self and world. Focusing on the gnoseological dialogue featured in the story of the enlightened princess Cūḍālā and her stubbornly object-oriented husband, king Śikhidvaja, Madaio examines how the dialogue works to disrupt core beliefs of a dualistic worldview, not only in Śikhidvaja and Rāma, but also in the reader.

This article examines commentaries on the Prayer at the hour of death traditionally attributed to Śaṅkara, which appear in the same form as Īśā-Upaniṣad 15–18 and Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad 5,15.1 in the Kāṇva recension. A comparison of these two commentaries reveals their striking resemblance on (a) the broader level of the interpretation of the meaning of the Upaniṣadic passage in question, and (b) on the more specific level, where remarkably similar expressions and wording appear. These commentaries show no real differences, except that the commentary on the Īśā-Upaniṣad version of the Prayer is more extensive than the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad version, and thus contains some additional information. Although the similarities cannot be used as a valid means to prove they were written by the same author, they still may support this thesis.

Аннотация. Публикация перевода с санскрита (первого на русском языке) и статья-исследование санскритского текста XVII в. «Веданта-парибхаша» Дхармараджи, посвященного теории непосредственного восприятия и роли в ней
языка в классической и особенно поздней адвайта-веданте. В статье показано,что оригинальность этой теории состоит в том, что непосредственный характер приписывается познанию из слов, которое в других школах индийской философии считается опосредованным ментальными и вербальными конструкциями. В связи с этим рассматривается теория Шанкары об эвокативной функции языка в экзегезе текстов Откровения (Шрути). Анализируются методы этой экзегезы и ее применение к интерпретации высказываний обыденного языка в концепции Дхармараджи. Отмечаются элементы «реализма» и «натурализма» в поздней адвайтистской идеалистической теории познания.
Ключевые слова: Индийская философия, адвайта, непосредственное восприятие, Шанкара, Дхармараджа, экзегеза, Шрути, махавакья, откровение, эвокативная функция языка, сознание, познание, сакшин, субъект, реальность.

This paper deals with the authorship of the Vivekacūḍāmaṇi and the seventeen Vedānta Stotras traditionally attributed to Śaṅkara, the author of Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya. Robert Gussner subjected the same works to a statistical stylometric test in the 1970s and concluded that they could not be authored by Śaṅkara. The problem of authorship in this paper is approached from two angles; the first is a traditional philological approach in accordance with the criteria for determining Śaṅkara's authorship set by Paul Hacker. Although such an analysis does not yield unequivocal results, the use of some terms and concepts such as saccidānanda and māyā indicate that the works do not belong to Śaṅkara, but were composed at a later period. Another methodology being tested in the paper is a state-of-art stylometric methodology called the General Imposters framework. The paper first describes the methodology itself, then extensively discusses the preparation of the texts, especially the problem of separating the Sanskrit text and resolving the sandhi. The paper then reports on the reliability of the method when applied to the texts of known authors. Finally, the method is tested on Vivekacūḍāmaṇi and the 12 Vedānta Stotras by applying several different parameters which mostly indicate that the works in question cannot be attributed to Śaṅkara. In this way, the General Imposters framework confirms the results that Robert Gussner obtained in the 1970s.

This paper discusses the application of contemporary authorship verification methods to a Sanskrit text. An appropriate example through which to explicate this issue is the commentary on the Chāndogya-Upaniṣad, which is traditionally attributed to Śaṅkara. This paper is focused on a stylometric authorship verification method, the recently introduced General Imposters framework. First, two ways of preparing Sanskrit texts are described; one is the time-consuming manual separation of words and resolving sandhi, and the other is the automatic segmentation of the text into 3-grams. The paper reports that word segmenta-tion yields better results than 3-grams in the case of texts with confirmed authorship. In the next step, the GI procedure applied to the Chāndogya-Upaniṣad-Bhāṣya itself confirms Śaṅkara's authorship.

The article deals with the way Advaita Vedānta approaches immortality, in opposition to the Judeo-Christian outlook. While Western civilization sees immortality in relation to the human personality and as somehow dedicated to the culmination of some higher personal values, Vedānta has a rather cosmic outlook, which only integrates human condition as a mere aspect of it. Eternity characterizes the Cosmic process, in its entirety. Human person and human values only collaterally occur within this process, as ʻstagesʼ of it. Therefore, in Vedānta, values and meanings pertain rather to the Cosmic process of Karmic consumption. The ʻspiritualʼ story is not so much about persons to be ʻsavedʼ and risen to ʻheavenly immortalityʼ but rather about an impersonal energetic process, of Karmic consumption. Spirituality is not mainly focused on issues specific to personal condition, such as taking the right decision, but rather on favouring the optimal deployment of a Cosmic process. It is rather a Cosmic spirituality that a personal one.
Within this context, the article particularly approaches issues such as the foetal condition (important for abortion related discussions), the after-life, the value and the meaning of human life.

South Asian cultural tradition espouses an ontological worldview of the universe as unified One and an epistemological understanding of unity-in-diversity, both endorsing the "both-and" paradigm which is in contrast with the Western "either/or" paradigm. An exquisite expression of this "both-and" paradigm is advaita or non-dualism, which through numerous modifications (e.g. Shankar"s Advaita vis-à-vis Nimbarak"s Dvaitadvaita) and appropriations (e.g. Sufistic wahdat al-wujud vis-à-vis Upanishadic Aham Brahma asmi) has had its resonance in the Indian poetics. The present paper is a critical study on the appropriative incorporation of advaita in three South Asian poetics-Sanskrit advaita, Tamil attutvita, and Bangla dvatadvaita-with a view to exploring interliterary unity and variety. Offering a reading of the "macrocsomic" (foundational aspects of literature) and "microcosmic" (generic divisions) aspects of the three poetics, the paper demonstrates how literary macrocosm and microcosm are interdependent and inter-illuminating. The paper contends that underscoring the inter-cultural appropriation of the notion of advaita in different climes and times suggests the continuity and contemporaneity of the corresponding "both-and" paradigm. The understanding of this inter-cultural inter-literariness is an informed way to resist West-centric cognitive colonization and break space for the celebration of pluralism in South Asian poetics.

ABSTRACT: From the Hindu perspective known as advaita, or aduality, Panikkar criticizes the primacy of scientific thought in detriment of a more holistic vision of reality, which is for him related to an experience of a "new innocence". Such experience requires a vision of the third eye, which integrates reason and the senses, that can also be called mystical experience. In the panikkarian vision, mystics are an adualistic relationship between action and contemplation, knowledge and love. We will show how he builds such criticism and points out a way, which he thinks would lead to a kind of loving knowledge, more integrated to what he calls the experience of Life.
RESUMO A partir da perspectiva hindu, conhecida como advaita ou adualidade, Panikkar faz uma crítica à primazia do pensamento científico em detrimento de uma visão mais holística da realidade que, para ele, estaria relacionada à experiência de uma nova inocência. Tal experiência exige uma visão do terceiro olho, que integra a razão e os sentidos, que também pode ser chamada de experiência mística ou intuição advaita. Na visão panikkariana, a mística é uma relação adualista entre a ação e a contemplação, o conhecimento e o amor. Através de pesquisa bibliográfica em uma perspectiva metodológica crítico-analítica, mostraremos de que forma ele constrói sua crítica e aponta o caminho que, ao seu entender, leva a um tipo de conhecimento amoroso, mais integrado ao que chama de experiência da Vida. Palavras-chave: Advaita. Mística. Conhecimento. Hinduísmo. Religião.