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A Western Perspective on Advaita Vedanta, Through the Teachings of

Ramana Maharshi

Max Cooper (University of Ottawa/University of Delhi) (2013)

Introduction

The Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, finding its earliest

expression in ancient texts called the Upanishads (c. 700 – 400

bce (cf. Roebuck xi)), has long been a source of fascination for

Western thinkers. A.N. Whitehead opined that “Vedanta is the most

impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived” (Smith 135),

while for Arthur Schopenhauer “In the whole world there is no

study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It

has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my

death” (from Muller, 8). Max Muller concurred with Schopenhauer:

“If philosophy is meant to be a preparation for a happy death, or

Euthanasia, I know of no better preparation for it than the

Vedanta Philosophy” (ibid., 8). We will try to discover what has

allowed Vedanta to be so beneficial and elevating, to be a solace

for life and a preparation for death. Our understanding will be

facilitated by the life and teachings of 20th century Indian sage

Ramana Maharshi, whose practical distillation of these once

esoteric teachings is among the most straightforward, and who

himself as a Self-realized jnani may be seen as a living exemplar

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of the goal of the philosophy. Ramana taught a practice of

constant self-inquiry, leading to an awareness of the inmost Self

or Atman. This ‘Self’ is very different from typical Western

conceptions of ‘self’ – it is not the body, individual

personality, or even the mind, but rather a consciousness

underlying all of these. Ultimately this Self is not even an

‘individual’ Self, being non-different from Brahman, the first

principle of the entire cosmos. In the course of exploring

Advaita Vedanta’s1 teachings, paying particular attention to

possible barriers to understanding from a Western perspective, we

will try to discover why this philosophy has been so edifying for

many thinkers and whether it can be so too for us.

Ramana’s Awakening and the Nature of the Self

According to Ramana’s Advaita teachings, the actions of one’s

body are singularly unimportant to understanding who one really

is; however, it will be helpful to our project to briefly relate

some circumstances of the sage’s life. Ramana (1879-1950)

underwent a spontaneous awakening experience in his uncle’s house

in Madurai, South India, at the age of sixteen which ultimately

led him to renounce worldly life. Within six weeks he had escaped

alone with three rupees in his pocket, reaching by train the holy

mountain Arunachala, from whose immediate environs he would never

again depart. Eventually an ashram grew up around him, with

seekers travelling from the world over to visit the sage. 1 Because many Sanskrit words will be repeated quite often throughout the text, we will follow the practice of italicizing only for their first use, with the exception of places where it makes the text more clear.

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Ramana has described his adolescent awakening experience as

follows: he was sitting alone when he was suddenly overtaken by a

“violent fear of death” – seemingly unaccountable as he was then

in perfect health. This “drove [his] mind inwards,” and he asked

himself: “what does [death] mean? What is it that is dying? This

body dies . . .” (Osborne 9). What followed represented an

illumination to the presence of the deathless spirit:

‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It

will be carried stiff to the burning ground . . . But

with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body I?

It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my

personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me,

apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body.

The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot

be touched by death. That means I am the deathless

spirit. (Osborne 9)

He recounts that this “was not dull thought,” but “flashed

through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly,

almost without thought process” (9) – a wholly intuitive

intimation. “From that moment onwards, the ‘I’ or Self focused

attention on itself by a powerful fascination” (9); Ramana’s

life, his mode of being and perceiving, was irreversibly changed:

Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption

in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other

thoughts might come and go like the various notes of

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music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti

note2 that underlies and blends with all the other

notes (9-10).

This represented a total transformation from his past state:

“Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and

was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or

direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell

permanently in it” (10). After this, however, total “absorption

in the Self” was unceasing (10).

Nature of the Self – Not the Body, Ego, or Mind

What is this “Self” of which Ramana speaks? To the modern

Western mind, “dwelling permanently in the Self” might seem to

imply what we often call ‘selfishness’ or ‘egotism’; but this is

not what is meant here. As suggested by Ramana’s experience

above, this Self is neither the ego, the body, or the

personality. Ramana made this clear to Sivaprakasam Pillai, one

of his early devotees:

The real I or Self is not the body, nor any of the five

senses, nor the sense objects, nor the organs of

action, nor the prana (breath or vital force), nor the

mind, nor even the deep sleep state where there is no

cognisance of these. (Osborne 101)

2 “The monotone persisting through a Hindu piece of music, like the thread on which beads are strung, represents the Self persisting through all the forms of being” (Osborne 10n).

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What then is this real Self?

After rejecting each of these and saying, ‘this I am

not,’ that which alone remains is the ‘I,’ and that is

Consciousness. . . . This is also called Mouna

(silence) or Atma (self). That is the only thing that

is. (101)

The true ‘I’ or ‘Self’ is essentially consciousness (chit), and no

part of it is external to consciousness – it is not the body, the

senses, or even the mind. Here Ramana is in harmony with the

Indian tradition of psychology, which strongly emphasizes a

distinction between chit (consciousness) and mind (manas). This

mind/consciousness distinction is not emphasized in the Western

philosophical tradition. We can see this in the thought of early

modern philosophy’s champion of the ‘mind/body’ distinction, René

Descartes. Descartes did not conceive of consciousness as

something separate from the mind; rather, in his intuitive reply

to his own question, “But what then am I?,” he declared, “A thing

that thinks. . . . A thing that doubts, understands, affirms,

denies, wills, refuses . . .” (“Meditation Two” (31)). For

Descartes, the thinking mind was his inmost being – what he

fundamentally was.

For Ramana and Advaita Vedanta the true Self is distinct

from the mind. It is neither a doer nor a thinker, but rather is

the most basic witness which observes all doings and all thoughts.

Indeed, because the Self is not made of thought, Advaita suggests

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that to dwell in the Self will bring peace and quiet to the mind:

when one dwells in the Self, thoughts do not come. Or if they do

come, they may not be imbued with their former sense of urgency

and seriousness, because one no longer identifies with them: one

knows that one is not the mind. This helps explain why Ramana

above characterised the pure Self also as “mouna,” silence – to

rest in the Self is also to take a rest from the usual cacophony

of thought that we more or less constantly experience.

Steady River of Quietness

This may help explain why visitors to Ramana’s ashram often

nearly immediately found their minds being put at ease, often

even without any verbal teaching. Indeed, for the first several

years after his arrival at Arunachala, Ramana maintained total

silence; many assumed that he must have taken such a vow. Years

later he would begin to speak, and would deliver teachings as we

quoted above. But even during his silent years, his mere presence

had a powerful effect. His first European visitor, F.H.

Humphreys, related that “On reaching [his] cave we sat before him

at his feet and said nothing. We sat thus for a long time and I

felt lifted out of myself”; “For half an hour I looked into the

Maharshi’s eyes, which never changed their expression of deep

contemplation. I began to realize somewhat that the body is the

Temple of the Holy Ghost . . . My own feelings were

indescribable. . .” (from Osborne 55). Paul Brunton arrived at

Ramanashram “more a skeptic than a believer” (Osborne 55), but

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was so influenced by his time spent with the Maharshi that he

eventually wrote a book that made the sage famous. On his first

meeting, his initial reaction was a “perplexity at being totally

ignored” by the sage, then followed by a “strange fascination”

beginning to grip him as they sat in silence. “But,” he wrote,

it is not till the second hour of the uncommon scene

that I become aware of a silent, resistless change

which is taking place within my mind. One by one, the

questions which I prepared in the train with such

meticulous accuracy drop away. For it does not now seem

to matter whether they are asked or not, and it does

not matter whether I solve the problems which have

hitherto troubled me. I know only that a steady river

of quietness seems to be flowing near me, that a great

peace is penetrating the inner reaches of my being, and

that my thought-tortured brain is beginning to arrive

at some rest. (Brunton 220; quoted in Osborne 55-56)

A feeling of inner peace was one experience most common to

visitors from the ashram, and it often occurred without the need

of words. Ramana’s “real teaching,” Osborne notes, “was through

silence” (54).

The Self as Divine: Relationship to God

Ramana would later further elucidate to Paul Brunton the

nature of the Self and its realization: “The sense of ‘I’

pertains to the person, the body, and brain. When a man knows his

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true Self for the first time something else arises from the

depths of his being and takes possession of him. That something

is behind the mind; it is infinite, divine, eternal” (from

Osborne 11-12). We must continue to emphasize the importance of

the distinction between the sense of the personal ‘I’ and the

real ‘I,’ or consciousness. The latter is also sometimes called

by Ramana the ‘I – I’ (the real I behind the I) (cf. Powell, x);

it is “behind the mind,” and also behind the personality.

Intriguing is Ramana’s description of this Self as “infinite,

divine, eternal” – in what sense does he mean this Self to be

“divine”? What is its relationship to other manifestations of

God, such as the personal Gods of popular religious practice?

Ramana elucidates this in his Forty Verses on Reality:

All schools of thought postulate the fundamental triad

– God, soul, and world – although all three are

manifestations of the One. The belief that the three

remain eternally three lasts only as long as the ‘I’ or

ego lasts. To destroy the ego and stay in one’s own

state is best. (verse 2)

Ramana teaches that once one eliminates the personal ego, one

comes to see God, soul, and world as fundamentally One. To “stay

in one’s own state” is to dwell in the Self – the perceiver

behind the mind and personality – and by doing so one sees that

reality is not manifold. Commentator S.S. Cohen clarifies that

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for Ramana it is one’s identification with the body that gives

rise to seeing a differentiated triad of God, soul, and world:

The ‘I-am-the-body’ notion compels the admission of an

individuality (jiva), a world, and its creator, as three

distinct, perennial, co-existing entities. [Ramana]

perceives a single existence of which these are an

illusory manifestation which, however, vanishes the

moment the eternal ‘I’ is apprehended and the ego

perishes. (Cohen 124)

For Ramana there is only one reality; this reality is both

identified with and also realized through the apprehension of this

eternal Self, which is infinite and divine.

Advaita Vedanta: Atman = Brahman

This infinite, divine, and eternal Self is ultimately also

“the only thing that is” (Osborne 101; p. 3 above). What does it

mean for this Self to be the only thing that is? This Self is not

only not ‘personal,’ it is ultimately not ‘individual’ either: it

is the Self of all existence. This is a crucial point for Advaita

Vedanta. Paul Deussen, one of the first scholars to introduce

Advaita to the west, summed up the entire philosophy thus:

“[Advaita Vedanta’s] fundamental thought” is that “Atman=Brahman”

(Deussen 39); we may see the concept of Brahman as “the first

principle so far as it is comprehended in the universe,” and the

concept of Atman as the first principle “so far as it is known in

the inner self of man” (38). So then,

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If for our present purpose we hold fast to this

distinction of Brahman as the cosmical principle of the

universe, the atman as the psychical [of the ‘psyche’],

the fundamental thought of the entire Upanishad

philosophy may be expressed by the simple equation:

Brahman = Atman

That is to say—the Brahman, the power which presents

itself to us materialised in all existing things, which

creates, sustains, preserves, and receives back into

itself again all worlds, this eternal infinite divine

power is identical with the atman, with that which,

after stripping off everything external, we discover in

ourselves as our real most essential being, our

individual self, the soul. (39)

What we are, after stripping off all the layers covering up our

most essential self – discounting the body; the senses; the

personality; likes and dislikes; and finally even the calculating

and discursive mind – is a bare witness consciousness, or chit.

But this is not only what we are: we are not simply our own

individual chit or jiva (individuated soul), present in a world

populated by many other discrete jivas. Advaita Vedanta posits

rather that the basis of my consciousness is in fact identical

with the basis of the appearance of the entire cosmos. My

consciousness is non-different from the universal consciousness;

Atman = Brahman.

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Atman = Brahman: Cosmos as Ink Stain

Despite the terribly sublime beauty of this view, we likely

find ourselves skeptical. Why should my inmost Self be the same

as the first principle of existence? Surely I seem to be

basically separate from the rest of the cosmos? The Advaita

literature abounds in arguments, examples, and metaphors of all

kinds, only a few of which we will be able to look at here. The

present writer has found though that one of the best metaphors

for introducing modern thinkers to Advaita doctrine is one

presented by Alan Watts, who spent his life lecturing on Indian

philosophies to Westerners. Watts used a unique metaphor to

explain Advaita philosophy compellingly in terms of that

preferred creation story of modern scientifically-minded people,

the Big Bang:

Imagine you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a

wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. In the middle it

is dense, but as it gets out to the edge, the little

droplets get finer and finer, and make more complicated

patterns. So in the same way, we posit that there was a

‘big bang’ at the beginning of things and it

spread. . . . If this is true, then we human beings are

some of the complicated little patterns way out on the

edges of it . . . Very interesting. But [which is why

we have difficulty internalizing the Advaita view] we

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define ourselves as being only those little patterns. If

you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one

very complicated little curlicue way out on the edge of that explosion.

We might, though, try for a different definition. What

if we suggested that you are not something that’s a

result of the big bang, but that you are still the big bang in

process. You are the big bang, the original force of the

universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet

you, I see not just what you define yourself as—Mr. So-

and-so, Mrs. So-and-so—I see every one of you as the primordial

energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know

I’m that too. But we’ve learned to define ourselves as

separate from it. (from “The Nature of Consciousness,”

Disc 1; edited from audio lecture; emphases added).

Let us first note one possible objection: orthodox Advaitins might

argue against identifying Brahman with the primordial energy of

the big bang – for perhaps as Brahman is eternal it must underlie

even the energy of the big bang, which is posited as taking place

at a particular point in time. This need not concern us

excessively however: first, we must remember that Watts’s example

is not a literal explanation of Brahman but a metaphor; secondly,

we might reflect that it is in any case nearly impossible to

speak of Brahman except indirectly – this is because, being

infinite, any words used to describe it will be inadequate.

Brahman is thus often characterized by the formula ‘neti, neti’

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(‘not this, not that’): sometimes we cannot describe what Brahman

is but more easily what it is not. While Brahman may not be only

the primordial energy of the big bang, thinking of it in this way

may allow us to begin to better conceptualize Brahman ourselves.

Watts’s metaphor suggests one way in which it can it make

sense to see ourselves as one with the primordial energy of the

universe. If we re-conceptualize existence as something

‘happening,’ rather then as divided into discrete causes and

effects, we can then see ourselves as a seamless expression of

this happening rather than as a separate result of innumerable

preceding causes. When I see myself as a mere ‘result’ of the

universe’s energy, I posit myself as separate from this energy;

if I were to see myself as part of this as a ‘process,’ I could

then identify with being an aspect of this energy as a whole.

Watts suggests that it is because we have chosen to identify

ourselves as merely what is “contained inside our own skin” (our

bodies) – that we fail to see ourselves as ineluctably connected

with the entire energy of the cosmos.

Sensible Phenomena

This example may also lead us to reflect on the seeming

interdependence of all sensible phenomena.3 Ecology teaches that

3 This discussion of sensible phenomena must also be taken as strictly metaphorical: Advaita emphasizes not the non-duality of phenomena but more particularly of what underlies all phenomena – Brahman. The sensible world is often seen as more or less unreal. This is an oversimplification, however: as Ramana has stated, for Advaita the world is real “when experienced as the Self” and illusory “when seen apart from the Self” (cf. Osborne 96).

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it is impossible to properly understand ourselves without

understanding our relationship with all other life forms on this

planet; through photosynthesis, predation, and other processes,

all earthly life is ineluctably interdependent. Likewise, our

planet’s life depends on the light of the sun; the sun depended

for its creation on various elements being brought together by

the spinning galaxy; and likely so on. It might begin to seem as

though in our universe no individual entity can exist as it does

without the presence of innumerable other entities existing as

they do. Reflecting on this may lead us to wonder whether the

conceptual boundaries we employ to separate entities from one

another might be more or less arbitrary: I define myself as being

different from you; but then this difference I posit between us

is likewise a part of me. So I could not exist as I do without

knowing that you exist as you do; even our seeming

individualities then mutually depend on one another.

The ‘Wisdom of Babes’: Advaita and Infant Psychology

Watts declared above that “we’ve learned to define ourselves as

separate from [the primordial energy of the universe].” This

suggests (quite differently from our usual view) that awareness

that we are brahman is actually a more natural way of our

relating to the world; that it is our own mental constructions,

or learned images of ourselves, that produce our separated

feeling. This notion that unified awareness is primary and that

the separated feeling is a result of learned constructions may

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draw some support from developmental psychology. As Paediatrician

Daniel Stern relates, at birth and in the early months of life,

infants generally make little to no distinction between

‘themselves’ and ‘the world’ (Stern 11). It is largely through

the process of socialization that a baby learns to associate

herself with her own body and to disassociate herself with other

aspects of her awareness – she then sees the latter as being

‘outside,’ or ‘not-me.’ Stern tries to help us understand the

perception of babies: “pretend that weather is the only

medium . . . chairs, walls, light, and people all make up a

weatherscape” (these are not seen as separate discrete objects,

but as a “prevailing mood or force” akin to a certain “weather”

(Stern 11)). To fully understand how an infant perceives, we must

also

pretend that there is no you to stand outside the

weather and watch it happen. You are part of the

weatherscape. . . . the distinction between inside and

outside is still vague: both may seem to be a part of a

single continuous space. (Stern 11)

Infants seem to experience a more ‘unitive’ awareness; Advaita

would thus see them as being naturally closer to ‘atman=brahman’

realization. As suggested by Watts’s metaphor, it may indeed be

largely through a learned mode of relating to the world that

original feelings of unity are broken into personalized

individuality. We might thus better understand why S.

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Radhakrishnan asserts, in his foreword to Osborne’s Ramana

biography, that “We must become as little children before we can

enter into the realm of truth”; “It is said that the wisdom of

babes is greater than that of scholars . . . The child is much

nearer the vision of the Self” (xii).

Ramana and Advaita: Sat-Chit-Ananda

Ramana’s own teaching is indeed in line with Advaita

doctrine of the non-duality between atman and brahman. Continuing

the above conversation with his devotee (pp. 1-2 above), Pillai

asks, “What is the nature of that Consciousness [which arises

through enquiry]?”; Ramana replies:

It is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) in

which there is not even the slightest trace of the I

thought. This is also called Atma (Self). That is the

only thing that is. . . . God, ego, and world are

really Sivaswarupa (the Form of Siva) or Atmaswarupa (the

form of the Atman). (Osborne 101-102).

Ramana teaches that all apparently external phenomena are really

no more than Atmaswarupa. The inmost Self is identical with what

appear to be God and the world.

Ramana also describes the awareness of basic consciousness

as “Sat-Chit-Ananda,” or “Being-Consciousness-Bliss.” We can better

understand this from a bit of reflection on our discussion so

far. The first two terms are simple: the Self is Being because it

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is the basis of all awareness and is all that is; it is free from

egoic and material identification and so is pure Consciousness,

or chit. It is Bliss for a few reasons: first, this awareness is

free from thoughts of future or past, from all worldly worries or

fears; in dwelling in the Self, one dwells entirely in the

present moment, without one’s mind jumping into past memories or

future projections. Also, anxiety is said to dissipate when one

realizes this Self and thus ceases to consider the world and

oneself as separate entities, because in viewing these all as

appearances of the Self, one can take them a bit less seriously;

one can then live life if one desires simply as ‘lila,’ or ‘play.’

A person with this awareness might begin to put aside some of her

compulsive behaviours and obsessions with ego-driven

achievements: it begins to seem a bit silly to her to be forever

striving to get ahead, to make a name for herself, and to be more

successful than her neighbours. The moment one suddenly

identifies with all existence, there no longer seems to be a need

to get anything: for one realizes that one has everything – or

rather is everything – already.

Advaita often helps illustrate this with the image of waves

and water: the fundamental substance of our being is water, which

is the same in everyone else and throughout the entire ocean, but

we have a tendency to identify ourselves as only our individual

wave. Thus, so long as a person identifies as merely a wave, he

has anxiety – ‘I am a small wave’; ‘I would like to be a bigger

wave’; ‘a more beautiful one’; and particularly, ‘I will soon

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splash onto the shore, where I shall die!’ The moment however

that one views oneself ultimately as water – which is the same

throughout the ocean – and ceases to identify with his individual

wave but instead with the fathomless deep, one can then drop

anxiety and instead enjoy simple oceanic consciousness. To have an

inkling of this concept may be to bring one’s mind some ease; to

live in constant awareness of it may to be dwell permanently in

ananda, bliss.

Ramana’s Prescribed Method to Self-Realization: ‘Who Am I?’

We have seen that Ramana himself realized the Self through a

sudden near-death experience. As it seems unlikely that he could

direct his visitors and disciples to undergo a similar experience

themselves – his was spontaneous and unsought – we may wonder

what method he recommended for realizing the Self. His principal

prescribed method was a very simple one called vichara

(‘enquiry’). To devotee Pillai’s question “How is salvation to be

attained?,” Ramana replied, “By incessant enquiry ‘Who am I?’ you

will know yourself and thereby attain salvation” (Osborne 101).

This enquiry would proceed in the way elucidated (see page 2): by

noticing that one is not the body, nor the senses, nor the

objects of the senses, nor the breath, nor the mind, nor even the

deep sleep state. The only thing that then remains is the pure

Self, the ‘witness’ of all these: the Self is aware of all of

these states, but is not identified with any one of them.

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Ramana taught that “Self-enquiry is the one infallible

means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned absolute

Being that you really are” (Maharshi’s Gospel II; Osborne 185).

He also emphasized that for the practice to be ultimately

effective, it had to be practiced constantly until it became

habitual:

Never yield room in your mind for [doubts], but dive

into the Self with firm resolve. If the mind is

constantly directed to the Self by this enquiry it is

eventually dissolved and transformed into the Self.

When you feel any doubt do not try to elucidate it but

to know who it is to whom the doubt occurs. (Osborne

103)

Sustained practice is key; whenever any thought, doubt, or

perception occurs, one should remember always to ask to whom

(this thought, doubt, perception) occurs. The mind by its nature

is always drawn to objects, wishing to investigate the external

world in all its seductive and intriguing multiplicity. Ramana

taught that the only way to reduce this fascination with external

phenomena was through unceasing enquiry: “Self-enquiry continues

to be necessary until the Self is realized. What is required is

continuous and uninterrupted remembrance of the Self” (103-104).

Therefore, as Osborne notes, it was “not only as a technique of

meditation that [Ramana] prescribed Self-enquiry but as a

technique of living also” (191).

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You Are Always of the Nature of Bliss!

Finally, despite this prescribed method for realizing the

Self which we all really are, Ramana and Advaita add a surprising

twist. As Ramana dramatizes a conversation in his Vichara Mani

Malai:

Disciple: Swami, what are the means of putting an end

to the miseries of samsara like birth and death and of

attaining supreme bliss?

Guru: O Disciple! What a delusion! You are always of

the nature of bliss. There is not the least trace of

samsara in you. Therefore do not take upon yourself the

miseries of birth, etc. You are the conscious Brahman

which is free from birth and death. (Vichara Mani Malai 8)

This is Advaita (‘non-dualism’) taken to the utmost: there is

ultimately no difference between liberation and the endless

cycles of birth, death, and suffering (samsara). Though we may

not know it, we are always of the nature of bliss.4

Now though, we may begin to wonder: what the point is of

Self-enquiry, or for that matter of any other method for self-

realization? To what end are these methods if we are already of

the nature of bliss? The Disciple has a similar concern:

4 Here Advaita philosophy intriguingly anticipates the posit of Nagarjuna and some Mahayana Buddhist schools that “Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara” (see, e.g., Peter Harvey 125 ff.).

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If I am (already) of the nature of bliss how is it

possible for me to attain the bliss which is always

attained and similarly to get rid of the misery which

never existed? (8).

If we are already of the nature of bliss, how then can we attain

this bliss? For surely most of us do not feel like we are in

eternal bliss; we may be uncomfortable, depressed, or at least a

little bored. The Guru proceeds to clarify the matter however:

[Attaining this bliss] is possible just as one can seek

and find a bracelet which was on one’s arm all the time

but which one had forgotten about, and on finding it

look upon it as a new acquisition. . . . as in the case

of the serpent which, at no time present in the rope,

was mistaken for one, but which seemed to be there and

seems to disappear when one discovers that it is only a

piece of rope (8-9).

We need not actually realize the Self to be protected from

injuries suffered at the hands of the world – for the world

actually can not harm us. Life was never dangerous: though we

took it to be vicious as a snake, it was harmless as a rope.

This is because whether we knew it or not we have always been the

eternal deathless self. We believe we have lost our bracelet (our

Self) but really it has been on our arm the whole time (we have

always been brahman). Even in our very identification as a lone

curlicue, we were expressing an aspect of our own particular

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nature as part of the universe’s primordial energy: just as it is

natural for us to be brahman, it may be natural for us in

particular not to realize this. We may reflect also that though

they know it not, animals, plants, and insects are said to be

still brahman: their definitions of themselves (if they have such

things) do not change reality. Advaita often compares phenomenal

existence to a dream (cf. Sharma 80), and holds that realizing

the atman is to wake up to reality; but even if we do not wake

up, we remain brahman.

Advaita thus finally teaches that even our own apparently

unattractive individual self – perhaps riddled with impertinent

griefs and permeated by the personal ego – is actually (though we

knew it not) in its own way an expression of the boundless

cosmos. Precisely in being our own uniquely muddled and imperfect

selves, we remain an expression of the incomprehensible vastness,

beauty, and bliss of the eternal energy underlying the universe.

A wave may be ultimately water, but for a short time it is also a

wave, which is a transient though also beautiful feature of the

ocean.

Edification

We hope these discussions may have helped us begin to

understand what has made Advaita Vedanta so singularly edifying

for so many thinkers. Advaita presents us with a series of

uplifting affirmations: first, it tells us that our true self is

actually not the anxiety-ridden personality, nor the selfish ego,

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nor the impermanent and imperfect body; rather it is a pure and

eternal consciousness ‘behind’ all of these. Further, it asserts

that this Self is not only not personal but is also not

individual – that we are ultimately non-different from the

primordial energy of the universe: though we took ourselves each

to be separate and transient waves, we all are the water of the

ocean. Advaitic sage Ramana Maharshi also suggests a practice –

‘Self-enquiry’ – through which we can seek this Self: at the

least this may give our minds a holiday from constant discursive

thought; at most it may allow us to realize total bliss. Finally,

Advaita asserts however that even if we do not realize this Self,

we are ineluctably of the nature of eternal bliss – we remain

boundless and blissful brahman whether we know it or not. Thus

from this short survey we seem to have found a wealth of

attributes which render Advaita so uplifting. So following

Schopenhauer, we might now be inclined to read a verse of the

Upanishads every evening; or following Ramana we might take up

constant Self-enquiry. Or we might do neither of these, and still

need not fear, knowing that we remain utterly perfect and of the

nature of bliss.

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Appendix

Advaita Vedanta and Western Psychology: Sigmund Freud and the

‘Oceanic Feeling’

Though Advaita Vedanta has been so attractive to some Western

intellectuals, it is still firmly out of the mainstream of Western

thought. Contemporary psychology would likely take a rather dim

view of the kind of awakening experience Ramana Maharshi had as a

boy. It is unclear how precisely a practising Western psychologist

would diagnose such an experience, but it seems almost certain that

he would view it as somehow pathological.

We may take as an early example, or perhaps even a root of

this attitude, the opinion of the founder of contemporary Western

psychology, Sigmund Freud, on an “oceanic feeling” described to him

by an anonymous friend in his Civilization and its Discontents (the friend is

now known to have been the writer and mystic Romain Rolland). Freud

relates Rolland’s description of this feeling he (Rolland)

frequently experienced: it was as “a sense of ‘eternity,’ a feeling

of something limitless, unbounded – as it were ‘oceanic’” (11);

this of course suggests an experience akin to Advaitic Self-

realization, realizing identity with eternal and limitless brahman.

Moreover, for Rolland this feeling was a “purely subjective fact,

not an article of faith” (11); just as for instance Ramana’s

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experience was subjective, and not a product of external faith.5 The

feeling suggested the consciousness of “being indissolubly bound up

with and belonging to the whole of the world” (11); very much the

feeling that Advaita wishes to bring about.

Rolland saw this consciousness as “the source of the religious

energy which is seized upon by the various Churches and religious

systems,” and thought that “one may rightly call oneself religious

on the ground of this oceanic feeling alone” (11). Freud, however,

was not enthusiastic:

the idea that a person should be informed of his

connection with the world around him through an immediate

feeling that is used for this purpose from the beginning

sounds so bizarre, and fits so badly into the fabric of

our psychology, that we are justified in looking for a

psychoanalytic – that is to say a genetic – derivation of

such a feeling. . . (12)

He rejected seeing the oceanic feeling as the source of religious

energy, preferring to posit religious “needs” as having derived

from “the infant’s helplessness and the longing for the father”

(19). He suggested that the oceanic feeling was merely a kind of

“infantile regression,” a return to more infantile perception

precipitated by a person’s terror of the dangers posed to him by

the external world (12-19). While we have seen that there is much

sense in comparing oceanic consciousness to infant perception (pp.

5 Advaita when speaking of Self-realization places great emphasis on personal experience, denoted by the Sanskrit term ‘anubhava’: “[ultimately] the Vedanta acknowledges only one criterion of truth, viz. anubhava” (Belvalkar 18).

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9-10), the general tenor of Freud’s analysis is to view this

consciousness as firmly pathological. Freud misses the opportunity

to see the positive potential this feeling may have for individual

transformation as we have suggested above.

What Ramana’s devotees characterize as his awakening would be

more likely characterized by Freud (and much of today’s Western

psychology based on his work) as the onset of some type of ‘mental

disorder.’ Indeed, Ramana’s own family was not particularly happy

with him in the weeks immediately following his slip into oceanic

consciousness:

I would often sit alone, especially in a posture suitable

for meditation, and become absorbed in the Self, the

Spirit, the force or current which constituted me. I

would continue in this despite the jeers of my elder

brother who would sarcastically call me ‘sage’ or ‘yogi’

and advise me to retire into the jungle like the ancient

Rishis. (from Osborne 14-15)

Escaping and retiring from worldly life – not to the jungle but to

the mountain Arunachala – was ultimately what Ramana would do;6 had

6 We must note that Ramana did not view renunciation of home life as at all a necessary step for most people, and generally discouraged devotees who were interested in renouncing. As he told one disciple, “renunciation does not meanouter divestment of clothes and so on or abandonment of home. True renunciation is the renunciation of desires, passions, and attachments. . . . one who truly renounces actually merges in the world and expands his love to embrace the whole world. It would be more correct to describe the attitude of the devotee as universal love than as abandoning home to don the ochre robe” (from Osborne 82-83). Ramana recognized that everyone’s path was different depending on his or her karma accumulated from past lives, and while renunciation might have been the best step for him, it was not necessarily so for others (cf. Osborne 82-87).

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he been born in the West, this secret escape to live “like the

Rishis” would likely have been a path unavailable to him.

Mainstream psychology today tends to share with Freud this

skepticism towards anything savouring of the ‘mystical,’ usually

interpreting such conditions pathologically. We can only speculate

as to the number of people in the West who may have had experiences

similar to Ramana’s, and far from having ashrams built around them

may instead have been placed in mental institutions.

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