Principal schools of Vedanta

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Principal schools of Vedanta

• Advaita
• Dvaita
• Vishishtadvaita

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Important ideas.

• Maya Illusion. Everything that traps you within
  the illusion that you are not a spiritual being
  is illusory Maya must be overcome in order to
  achieve realisation of the way that things really
  are.
• Moksha Liberation. This is the state that
  vedantins aim towards liberation from Maya, and
  unity with the ultimate reality.

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Advaita Vedanta.

• Non-Dual Vedanta. Also called Monist.
• Principal idea is that only Brahman is real,
  everything else is maya.
• Everything that makes you think that you are an
  individual, with distinct existence, in a world
  of things, is illusory.

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Advaita Vedanta

• Moksha is achieved by realising (jñana) that your
  atman is Brahman i.e. that you are really
  Brahman.
• While there is no doubt that you do not perceive
  the Existent here, it is not to be doubted that
  it is here just the same. What the subtle
  essence is, a state of having That as its nature
  is this universe That is the real, That is the
  self, That art thou Shvetaketu! Chandogya
  Upanishad, 613

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Shankara

• Advaitas principal proponent was Shankara, a
  priest of Shiva, who realised that actually,
  behind all ideas of the divine lurked an awesome
  ultimate reality.

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3 levels of reality.

• Shankara taught that there are three levels of
  reality, through which one must progress in order
  to realise Brahman.
• 1) The Illusory
• 2) The merely real.
• 3) The really real.

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The mundane.

• We all accept that there are things that are
  illusory dreams, daydreams, hallucinations,
  mirages, tricks of the light, tricks of the eye,
  etc.
• This is the first level of reality that
  Shankara identifies.

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The mundane.

• Most people live in the mundane reality, where
  they accept as real only those things which
  appear real to the senses. This is also for those
  who realise that there is a spiritual component
  to existence. They have an individual soul
  (Jiva) and worship a personal divinity
  (istadevata).

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The really real.

• Ultimately only Brahman exists, and this
  realisation is what will bring moksha, which is
  liberation from the illusion of Maya, and an end
  to the effects of Karma.
• The second stage, of worshipping God is good, but
  the true seeker should move beyond it, and
  discover ultimate truth.

10
The Snake Story.

• Shankara illustrated this three level theory with
  a story a man, going to bed sees a snake beneath
  his bed, and cries for help. His servants run in
  with lights, and the snake is revealed to be a
  coil of rope. None can in fact see that all of
  this is Maya!

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Dvaita Vedanta

• Dual Vedanta. Teaches that two things are real,
  and that everything else is Maya.
• Taught by Madhva

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Dvaita Vedanta

• Brahman and atman alone are real, and, while they
  are made of the same sort of stuff, they are
  distinct and different.

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Moksha in Dvaita Vedanta

• After working hard at realising your own atman,
  moksha is thought of as the raindrop falling into
  the ocean two things of the same stuff meeting.

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Vishishtadvaita Vedanta

• Taught by Ramanuja.
• Qualified non-dualism. Here atman is thought of
  as a small part of Brahman that is split off for
  the duration of its many life times, moksha sees
  the return of the atman to Brahman.

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Moksha in Vishishtadvaita Vedanta

• Think of a bucket of water taken from the sea,
  kept apart for some time, and then returned
  something of the same stuff, originating in the
  same place, and eventually returning there.