Advaita Vedanta on the True Nature of Everything
March 25, 2026
“The self that I ordinarily see,” says the aspirant, “this is not Me; the world as it presents itself to me with its divisions and contradictions, this cannot be Real. With intellect alone, I remain outside of everything. I ask something in Nature what it is and receive as an answer only my own categories and classifications. Led from one thing to another, I do not grasp what is. “Who are you?‘I might silently ask another, and as soon as I make noise within myself, I fail to find the answer. Desires, needs, attachments well up within me and bind me to what I should not be.
“What is the body? What is the mind? Am I only a collection of the accidents of birth, of language, of country? I am awake, I dream, and sometimes I seem to rest peacefully in my very being. The body changes and deteriorates. It cannot be the Self. The mind is fickle, intemperate, and yet powerful. It enables me to master my environmentbut what does this mastery mean? Today I am a success, tomorrow, a failure. Should I be only the praise and blame of others? Civilizations come and go; what meaning, then, can my petty mastery have? Awake, I am the world: it and me are so mutually involved that I can only partially discriminate between them. Asleep, I still remain its victim. And even when awake, am I not still half-asleep? I cannot completely control the stream of images, of desires, of memoriesof nonsensethat is so much a part of my waking consciousness. The mind cannot be the Self. Still there are moments of intense well-being; of self-satisfaction and aesthetic delight. Unself-consciously I find myself to be a part of something else; I give myself over to it and find a wonderful harmony there. Everything finds its place here. Without fear, without anxiety, without restlessness and ambition, and without the need to possess, I realize the immense potentiality of being, the power that sustains life. But this state of being too is transitory. This feeling and knowing self, this state of delightful harmony cannot be the Self.
“Events appear and disappear. I accept some and reject others. What is important to me today, I discover to be unimportant to me tomorrow. Truths are turned into illusions: what I value most before attaining it, I disvalue when I attain it. The things of the worldpower, prestige, money, even family and hometurn out to be empty: instead of liberating they bind me. Everything gets rejected by something else. No thing, then, can be truly real.
“The more I learn, the less I know what is of real value to me. The more I strive, the less I know where I am going. Around and around I am turned. What do I really know? I see the world in terms of my knowledge and desire, and therefore I do not really see the world at all. This world of mine cannot be Real.”
Neti neti, the Self is not this, not this: “my,” “me,” “mine” become sounds signifying nothing. Tat tvam asithe Self is Reality. ‘‘You” and “me” are not-different. Causes and effects are mutually involved: the material elements (gross and subtle) that constitute physical nature are ontologically nothing but their cause, namely, (I-consciousness) and buddhi (intelligence); they are nothing but their cause, namely, Brahman, or consciousness associated with maya , and Brahman has its ultimate ground in pure consciousness or Brahman. Desuperimposition (apavada), the reducing of effects back into their causes, the discriminating away of all lower levels of experience, is the sword that cuts away false identifications. It culminates in those “great sayings,” brahmasmi *I am Brahman, there are no distinctions in Reality and tat tvam asithou art that; Brahman is one and all is Brahman.
~ Advaita Vedanta A Philosophical Reconstruction, Chapter 8 (II)
