Understanding Advaita

Advaita is a spiritual insight from Vedic traditions whose Sanskrit etymology means non-duality or a-duality¹⁴. It advocates the impossibility of reducing reality into neither pure singularity nor mere multiplicity. This non-dual approach is essentially exegetical and relational of all things, including the world and the ultimate reality or God. It is the recognition that the merely quantitative problem of the one and many of dialectical reason does not apply to the realm of ultimate reality, whose manifesting pluralities do not split into disconnected multiplicity but unity¹⁵. Accordingly God is not individually separate from the rest of created reality, nor is He totally identical to it, as occurs with dualism and monism¹⁶.

The perspective of Advaita is considered the summit of all the religions and philosophies, insofar as they support the supreme experience of non-duality, the inseparability between the self (âtman) and God (Brahman)¹⁷. Accordingly, attaining truth is to come to the

13 MUKERJI, 1990, p. 233.

14 The Sanskrit term अद्वैत means a-dvaita which is “neither one nor two”. It signifies the absolute oneness, the one without the second. It refutes reality to be single as in monism and to be plural as in dualism. It sees ultimate reality as being neither monistic nor dualistic. Beyond monism and dualism, it views reality to be in intrinsic inseparable unique relationship between God, the creator and the created self.

15 PANIKKAR, 1977, p. 867.

16 Nevertheless some Western theologians judge Advaita to be monism and until recently some still continue to consider it so. For them, Advaita remains to be incomprehensively beyond the grasp see: PANIKKAR, 1979, p.

281.

17 The word âtman is derived from the root ‘an’ which means to breathe. It is the breathing of life. Gradually it is extended to signify life, soul, self, or essential being as heart of the individual, the independent subject. There are three philosophic positions commonly held with regard to âtman: (i) the corporeal self, the material body; (ii) the individual soul, alma, free from the material body; (iii) the Supreme Soul, in which subject and object are no longer distinguished from one another, or the objectless knowing subject according to the Indian Vedic

realization that created self is unison with the creator God, or in other words, Tattvamasi¹⁸. It is like the experience of Paul when he exclaims: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2,20). In Advaita, God and the world are not juxtaposed, nor is the one absorbed by the other, but rather they exist in a reciprocal relationship: the Absolute is at once transcendent and immanent. The transcendent dimension excludes monistic identifications, while the immanent prevents the dualistic separations¹⁹.

a) Love Relationship in Advaita

Advaita is an indivisible relationship of oneness. If we believe in one God then the diverse manifestations of God must be in interconnectedness of reciprocal communion and convergence. This position has to be discerned a posteriori, given the freedom of God, who manifests, and the freedom of humans, who respond to that manifestations²⁰. Beyond every dichotomous dualistic separation, Advaita opts for the third way; it promotes integrating, unifying mystical vision; it is a kind of triadic yet unitive path of intrinsic interrelation and communion²¹. Amaladoss illustrates the meaning of advaita in dialogue with Jesus and avatars in Hindu Understanding.

In Hinduism, advaita is referred to the intimate relationship between the One- Absolute-God with other beings. It simultaneously means that the relation between immortal God and mortal being is not two yet not one. The Divine being and human being are not two yet not one. They are intimately interconnected in themselves while preserving their own individuality. This type of relation is conceived at various levels. My body and I are not two yet not one. I am my body but I am not only my body. When Jesus says, “My Father and I are one (Jn 10,30)”, the Hindus understand that Jesus means his advaitic undividing relationship. At the one side, Jesus extends his advaitic relationship with his Father. At the other side, he extends his advaitic relation to us. Jesus thus prayed that they might all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us (Jn 17,21). Paul also talks about the similar relation, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Rm 8,26), (AMALADOSS, 2006, p. 117).

teachings. Brahman means the Supreme reality, the Ultimate, the Absolute. The word Brahman is derived from the root ‘brh’ which means to grow, to burst forth. Gradually the word acquired the meaning of power, potency, knowledge, etc. Then Brahman became the primal principle and guiding spirit of the universe, the self-existent creative principle, the all-pervading source of everything. Thus Brahman is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Supreme Consciousness, see: NINIAN, 1989, p. 1-31.

18 The enlightening phrase तत्त्वमसि (tattvamasi) in Sanskrit literally means “thou are that” or “that is you and you are that” i.e. the âtman (self) is identical with Brahman (God), the Absolute. It originally appears in the Chandogya Upanishad (6.8.7). It establishes the qualifying experience of Advaita wherein the term Tat is God, the creator, the Absolute; Tvam is you, the self, the creation; Iva is similar or like; and asi is appearance or look;

tattvamasi densely signifies that the self is the extension of God or the oneness of God. My person is nothing but a relation with the “I” (God). The realization of my-self in a “thou” of God, the Other.

19 See: http://www.raimon-panikkar.org/english/gloss-A-dualism.html accessed on 4^th November 2018 at 5.p. m.

20 AMALADOSS, 2006, p. 108.

21 The Greek dualism dichotomously separates God from the human and then does not know to put them together in inseparable unity, see: AMALADOSS, 2006, p. 116.

Having grasped the meaning of avatar and advaita, its triadic yet intrinsic unity, we can assert that Jesus as avatar of God is in intrinsic communion with God the Father and the whole of humanity. Jesus was in the form of God (Phil 2,1). He was with God and he was God (Jn 1,1). Yet, he took the form of a slave and became obedient to the point of death on a Cross (Phil 2,5-11). It is clear that Jesus values the immortal soul as well as the mortal body and brings salvation to the whole of humanity. Thus, advaita is a path wherein right and left merges. It interpenetrates all things; it includes everything; it surpasses all divisions; it integrates the separations; it moves forward eternally; it respects the individuality and dialogues with the polarities. Perhaps, Jesus by his vision of advaita never excludes people who are poor, oppressed, and orphaned. He does not ignore the children and women, prostitutes and sinners. A person of advaita can love everything unconditionally beyond name and form, caste and creed, word and deed, race and religion²².

b) Christocentric Advaita

I and the Father are one (Jn 10,30). It may not be the literal statement (ipsissima verba) but the very intention (ipsissima intentio) of Jesus. By saying this, Jesus is intensifying his exegesis of Hebrew psalm, “you are Gods and are sons of the most High” (Ps 82,6). He asserts that his deeds were to manifest the veracity of his words: the Father is in me and I in the Father (Jn 10,38). This unitive relationship is extended to all who will believe in him- we are all one (Jn 17,21-23)²³.

The love based on advaita is incompatible with dichotomy and egocentrism. When I love my beloved I cannot love him or her because of himself or herself, nor because of God, but I must love him or her with the identical love with which I love God; the same current of love that propels me into the love of God makes me love my beloved as he or she is a true spark of God; Advaita relation does not love the individual, but the personal, not the property of the beloved, but the divine gift and human commandment bestowed upon him or her: that which the beloved does not possess, but is. I love my beloved not because of myself, but for the sake of himself or herself. It is simply because in him or her I discover God, not as an object, but as the very subject loving in myself. It is a personal and direct love that passes through me to the beloved, in a way, making the beloved to be (not to die). It is the very love

22 PANIKKAR, 1979, p. 281.

23 Biblical knowing is equivalent to being in communion. The Greek preposition ἕν emphatically brings out such union is evident in ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν (Jn 10,30). For expressing the communion between Jesus and his Father, Jesus and his disciples, this ἕν appears several times (Jn 10,38; 17,21-23). Panikkar expounds this in his work, see: PANIKKAR, 2009, p. 106-108.

of God towards my beloved which makes him or her to be without subordination of ἵνα, ὅτι, καθώς²⁴.