Sublime

Advaita means ‘non-duality’. Used to describe Shankara’s perspective on vedanta, it indicates the inseparability of the salt and the water in the story about Shvetaketu. To Shankara, in the 9th century ce, ultimate reality and the self were identical, and his task was to explain why people failed to realize this.

advaita, ‘not two.’

negate the five sheaths, which are other than oneself. Hence in Upadēśa Undiyār Bhagavan has amended the path of knowledge (jñāna mārga) by rearranging the back-to-front process described in ancient scriptures into a new and practical order – that is, he points out that the practice of nēti nēti is actually the end result.

One of the most widely respected non-dual teachers today is Adyashanti, who originally studied Zen formally but began to teach more direct path style after his awakening. Adyashanti recommends trying out the inquiry “what am I?”, which I found to land better than Ramana’s “who am I?”. The word “who” can tend to evoke dimensions of identity, which c