Our articles about Advaita Vedanta, a non-dual Indian spiritual philosophy and way of life that has become a popular approach in the West to attaining Spiritual Awakening or Self-Realization.
Mantras as used in Hinduism and Buddhism are sacred sounds, utterances, words, short prayers, or sentences in the Sanskrit language, of which it’s believed that they have religious, transformational, protective, healing, magical, and/or spiritual powers. [ Read more … ]
In this post, we’ll discuss the Sanskrit terms Vyakti, Vyakta, and Avyakta and their contextual use in Advaita Vedanta. Vyakti The word Vyakti in Sanskrit translates as “individual manifestation,” “gender,” “visible appearance,” “discrimination,” or “distinctness,” [ Read more … ]
The need of having a spiritual teacher is one of the big questions within Advaita Vedanta. So, to attain Spiritual Enlightenment, do you really need a Guru or not? Well, there are those who claim [ Read more … ]
Ishvara — also written as Ishwara — can have a wide range of interpretations in Hinduism depending on the religious or philosophical lineage, which goes from Supreme Self, ruler, lord, Supreme Being, creator God, personal [ Read more … ]
The idea of the Absolute is present in all spiritual and philosophical traditions of India, although often widely differently interpreted. As a general rule, the Absolute is referred to as Brahman. The Absolute is associated [ Read more … ]
One of the questions that arises for a person who’s interested in Advaita Vedanta is how to find the right teacher or Guru. Certainly today you’ll easily find many Advaita teachers “offering their services,” notably [ Read more … ]
What exactly the characteristics are of the Jnani — the spiritual enlightened one — is a question often asked by Advaita Vedanta aspirants i.e. Advaitins or spiritual seekers. In fact, Advaitins want to know what [ Read more … ]
The idea of Karma (or the Law of Karma) in Hinduism involves action, work, or deeds, and the effects or consequences of those. More specifically, it involves the idea that actions of individuals cause or [ Read more … ]
The Sanskrit word Maya in the religious and spiritual sense can mean illusion, delusion, unreality, trick, earthly ignorance, phantasm, attachment, or worldly illusion. It’s a common concept appearing in Hindu philosophies. Maya points to the [ Read more … ]
One of the tenets of Neo-Advaita — and in a broader sense all nondual practices such as Zen Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, or Dzogchen — is that one cannot do anything to attain Self-Realization i.e. understand [ Read more … ]