Question:

Ekta didi, please would you explain Advaita [Non-Duality] in a nutshell. Everything is Brahman [Consciousness]. How?

Answer:

Let’s directly experience it rather than talk about it.

• Step 1 – Inward journey: Move the attention from the outside world of objects to the inside:
  • Start by looking at the object and recognizing that your eye is the ‘seer’ and the physical object is the ‘seen’.
  • Now step back once again and recognize your mind is the ‘seer’ and the eyes are the ‘seen’.
  • Now take one more step back and recognize the witness is the ‘seer’ and the mind is the ‘seen’.

• Step 2 – Now remain steady in the witness & recognize the quality of the witness.
  • It is limitless. It has no borders.
  • It is made of nothing.
  • It is not personal.
  • It extends beyond the body/mind.
  • It is a massive field that is shared by all and everything.
  • It is aware.
  • It is awareness itself.
  • I am ‘awareness’.
  • I am aware that I am aware.
  • Awareness is aware of itself.
  • Awareness knows itself.
  • Awareness is not different from Knowingness.
  • Therefore Witness = Awareness = Knowingness.

• Step 3 – Outward journey: Recognize the field of awareness/knowingness/witness while moving outward back into the world.
  • Are you knowing that you are thinking? Recognize that Knowingness is not different from thought.
  • Are you knowing that you are seeing and hearing? Recognize that Knowingness is not different from seeing & hearing. Therefore Knowingness is not different from the perception of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.
  • Are you knowing that a certain feeling is arising? Recognize that Knowingness is not different from feeling.
  • Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions are all made up of Knowingness itself.
  • Recognize that Knowingness transforms itself to become the mind and move outwards.
  • Recognize that we never know objects, we only know our perception of objects and the corresponding sensation that arises in the body, and the proceeding thought & feeling that arises in the mind.
  • The field of knowingness contains everything, even one’s own personal activities [cleaning, cooking, or playing with kids].
  • Activities of body and mind arise in the space of knowingness, they play for a while in knowingness and they dissolve/die into the space of knowingness.
  • Recognize that everything is just made up of one stuff – Knowingness/Awareness/Consciousness

To summarize it, Sarvam Evam Brahman! Everything is Consciousness!

#AtmaNirvriti #AtmanandaKrishnaMenon #AdvaitaVedanta #Non-Duality