Tag: Advaita Vedanta

• June 23, 2025

  Is Atmananda’s Direct Path Teaching The Same As Ramana Maharshi’s?

  Question: Aren’t Atmananda and Ramana Maharshi essentially saying the same thing, and can’t their direct path approaches be regarded as versions of the Witness teaching? Excellent question! And just the right one. In short: No! Atmananda’s teaching can be divided into “the lower” and “the higher.” The lower teaching employs the Witness in order to…
• June 21, 2025

  What, Really, Is Karma Yoga?

  One common misunderstanding of karma yoga would have it that it’s about being of service to others. While this view isn’t wrong per se, it largely misses the essential point, which is that it has to do with letting action come without resistance or fetishization while knowing that one is the eternal witness of all…
• June 19, 2025

  Suffering, Ultimately, Never Was

  For most spiritual seekers who set foot on a nondual spiritual path, the idea that suffering–indeed, my suffering–is real provides the motivating force to embark. This is a good, albeit provisional, thing. Slowly, however, this claim is sublated. First, this suffering seems to spread until it seems almost ubiquitous, sometimes to the point of suffocation.…
• June 18, 2025

  Maya As A Kind Of Seduction

  Atmananda offers us a helpful clue when it comes to trying to understand the nature of maya. In Atma Nivriti, he likens bondage, or maya, to the captivation one experiences while being transfixed by “the beauty of the figure” carved into a rock. There are three key remarks to make about this metaphor: One, maya…
• June 16, 2025

  Does The Mind Exist?

  1. The mind, it can be asserted, is limited consciousness. This definition gives rise to two questions. One, is consciousness ever limited? And, two, is there such a thing as the mind? 2. If consciousness is limited, it must be limited by something. There are only two possible cases to examine: 3a) and 3b): consciousness…