A collection of eight lectures by renowned spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, this volume presents a comprehensive introduction to Vedanta philosophy. Drawing on his personal experiences and insights, Vivekananda lays out a practical and accessible approach to spiritual seeking, emphasizing self-knowledge and direct experience. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, (...) and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Indian Philosophy has reached across the globe. It is popular for its practical way towards life. Study of Indian philosophy should be part of all streams of education. Film is effective tool of communication. It attracts all generations and makes strong impression in the mind. Film is always considered as an effective tool in Pedagogy. Philosophy deals with abstract concepts, their correlation and logical reasoning. It deals with the complex problem of reality. People have notion that philosophy is a dry (...) and theoretical subject. Students can understand complex philosophical ideas if they are demonstrated through films. There are films based on biographies of philosophers, life picture of great people, incidences in life of philosophers. But it can attract only limited number of audience. Some popular Hollywood films have amalgamation of science fiction, super natural elements, fantastic story guided by some philosophical principles. Such films attract audience from different strata. Viewer is totally captivated by extra ordinary super natural and fictional elements in the film. As a result, certain philosophical principles are taught to audience without their conscious effort. (Kantāsammita upadeśa) Teaching philosophy with the means of such films can be definitely effective tool in Pedagogy. Such practise will not only create liking for Indian Philosophy but will result in effective understanding of complex ideas. It can create awareness that Indian Philosophy is embraced across the globe, there are no boundaries for philosophical deliberations and there are certain common threads in different philosophical schools. Paper will take example of popular movie ‘Matrix’ to explain the principles of Advaita Vedānta. The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It states the journey of hero of the film ‘Neo’ who is aspiring for reality. He is struggling between illusory world and the real world which is presented through the means of science fiction. This paper will analyse Matrix from the perspective of Advaita Vedānta. Māyā projects the illusory world (vikṣepa) in place of Brahman (āvaraṇa). Film portrays digital world as illusory world. One sees this world as real due to limitations of body, mind and intellect. Neo goes to the real world and realises his true nature. True reality is beyond senses and sense objects (atindrīya). Concepts of Advaita Vedānta can be explained with this film. Such movies can be shown to students along with Vedanta discourses. Paper will explore ‘Film and Philosophy’ as an effective pedagogical model. (shrink)

Gerald Sykes -- Aldous Huxley -- Gerald Heard -- Christopher Isherwood -- John van Druten -- Marianna Masin -- J. Crawford Lewis -- Dorothy F. Mercer -- Kurt Friedrichs -- Swami Atulananda -- Jane Molard -- The Countess of Sandwich -- John Yale -- Joan Rayne -- Durgacharan -- Pravrajika Saradaprana.

A reproduction of the original book VEDANTA IN PRACTICE by Swami Paramananda first published in 1909. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. (...) We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. (shrink)

Vedanta An Overview redanta is one of the world's most ancient religious philosophies and T one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures ...

Presents Vedamta Dindimah Duly Translated With A Commentary By The Author - An Easy Manual On Advaita And Ascribed By Some To Sankara - Proclaims The Truth Of Vedanta In Clear Terms. 8 Small Chapters - Including Pre-View, Foreword - Introduction - Preface - Erc.

Bashabi Fraser is known the world over as a Scottish-Bengali aka diasporic writer. Further she has also been slotted as a feminist scholar with a huge corpus on Tagore. This essay proves the fallacy of such pigeon-holeing of Fraser and shows that she is as mainstream as Yeats and even before that, like unto Blake. The essay also makes a point for rejecting every other mode of poetry except the Romantic mode. It established the Vedantic nature of the poetic genius. (...) The endnotes are copious and comment on how/why/(what of) Fraser should compulsory reading at which age. The essay speaks at length on the nature of poetry. It stresses the value of Vedanta in assessing true poetry written even in English. This essay is also valuable since it has within it acute observations on Fraser as a Tagore scholar. (shrink)

Vedanta is the philosophy of the Vedas, those Indian scriptures which are the most ancient religious writings now known to the world. ...

Implementation of Vedanta philosophy in the daily life; collected articles.

Proceeding of the 22nd International Congress of Vedanta, organized at the Special Center for Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi during December 27-30, 2015.

Commentary on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, work on the Vedanta philosophy; Sanskrit text with English translation.

Part I. Essays on practical Vedanta and veganism -- Part II. Essentials of practical Vedanta.

Advaita Vedanta is the most refined philosophical pearl of Hinduism. It is reserved for seekers of Truth who want to know their own essence and aspire to liberation, or mokṣa. It suggests following the path of knowledge, called jñāna-yoga, which is more an existential view than a theory, philosophy, doctrine, or deductive logical knowledge. It teaches self-inquiry: "Who am I?" This question is an expression of the highest and noblest rebellion. It restores our dignity and accepts us as the (...) only authority on who we are. Jñāna is knowing ourselves as Brahman and realizing our reality as the transcendental Self, beyond time and space. In this book, Prabhuji presents the principles of Vedanta that will help seekers take their first steps on this path. Rather than offering information, explanations, and answers, he inspires us to inquire, doubt, and investigate our own essence. He tells us that every effort to achieve enlightenment is superfluous because we already are what we aspire to be. We simply need to turn our attention to consciousness itself and be the Self. (shrink)

Annotation. "This trim publication satisfies a much-felt need among teachers of Indian philosophy, who badly want introductions to the several systems of classical Indian thought such as Professor Deutsch provides."--Journal of Asian Studies.

Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika Buddhism. Eastern Religions in Western Thought. M.A. Cherian, published by the author, Broadstairs, Kent 1988. 195 pp. No price given.

Analytical study of the philosophy of Vedanta as depicted in the verses of Kaivalyopaniṣad and Br̥hadāraṇyakopaniṣads.

Introduction: Experiential deconstructive inquiry -- Foundational philosophies and spiritual methods -- Non-duality in Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism -- Ontological differences and non-duality -- Meditative inquiry, questioning, and dialoguing as a means to spiritual insight -- The undoing or deconstruction of dualistic conceptions -- Advaita Vedanta : philosophical foundations and deconstructive strategies -- Sources of the tradition -- Upaniads that art thou (Tat Tvam Asi) -- Gauapda (c.7th century) : no bondage, no liberation -- Aakara (c.7th-8th century) : (...) there is no apprehender different from this apprehension to apprehend it -- Modern and contemporary masters -- Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) : who am I? -- H.W.L Poonja (1910-1997) : you have to do nothing to be who you are! -- Gangaji (b. 1942) : you are that! -- Advaita Vedanta summary : nothing ever happens -- Zen Buddhism : philosophical foundations and deconstructive strategies -- Sources of the tradition -- The Lakvatra Sutra and the Vajracchedik Prajñpramit Sutra all things ... are not independent of each other and not two -- Ngrjuna (c.113-213) : Sasra is Nirva -- Eihei Dgen (1200-1253) : if I am already enlightened, why must I practice -- Contemporary masters -- Ekai Korematsu (b. 1948) : return to the spine -- Hgen Yamahata (b. 1935) : why not now -- Zen Buddhism summary : neither being nor non-being is to be taken hold of -- Deconstructive techniques and dynamics of experiential undoing -- Deconstructive techniques common to both traditions -- The teacher-student dynamic -- Key deconstructive techniques -- Unfindability analysis -- Bringing everything back to the here and now -- Paradoxical problems -- Negation -- Dynamics of experiential undoing -- Non-dual experiential space -- Experiential mapping : practitioners in the space -- Experiential undoing in Advaita Vedanta -- Experiential undoing in Zen Buddhism -- Conclusion: Deconstruction of reified awareness. (shrink)

Vedanta: Voice of Freedom is culled from Vivekananda's collected works. This book presents in a clear and concise form the spiritual wisdom of India as it has evolved over five thousand years.

Vedānta endeavours to base itself essentially on the facts of experience—in the fullest sense of the term. It recognizes the occurrence of everyday experience and the so-called fact of evil, but it refuses to view them as real. The real, it says, like Hegel, does not exist, and that which exists is not real. Evil is only an “existent"—as all this Samsara is—but not the ultimate Real. But it will be at once objected that if evil is an appearance, a (...) Maya, why should this appearance appear at all? If it has no foundation in reality, how and why does it occur at all? Further, how can anything be known as real unless it should appear ? Reality must appear. (shrink)

The Book Begins By Re-Examining The Imagery Of The Vedas And The Upanisads, Highlighting Some Aspects Of Early Speculative Thought Which Influenced The Enunciation Of Aesthetic Theories, Particularly Of Bharata In The Natyasastra.

A guide to the early oral literature of India covers the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, and discusses the concepts of non-duality and creative power.

Gerald Sykes -- Aldous Huxley -- Gerald Heard -- Christopher Isherwood -- John van Druten -- Marianna Masin -- J. Crawford Lewis -- Dorothy F. Mercer -- Kurt Friedrichs -- Swami Atulananda -- Jane Molard -- The Countess of Sandwich -- John Yale -- Joan Rayne -- Durgacharan -- Pravrajika Saradaprana.

Indian thought is often said to be concerned with ethics that leads to freedom. Either this means that we should treat freedom as the end that justifies the ethical life, or that the ethical life is the procedure that causes freedom. The history of Vedānta philosophy—philosophy of the latter part of the Vedas—largely endorses the latter option via the “moral transition argument” : a dialectic that takes us from teleology to proceduralism. It is motivated by a desire to remove luck (...) from moral theory. But this leaves open the Paradox of Development, which posits our moral freedom as a condition of protecting it. I explore the MTA, and Śaṅkara’s, Madhva’s, and Rāmānuja’s response to the Paradox of Development. (shrink)

Chiefly on Dvaita (Vedanta); essays of the lectures delivered at different universities and centre of studies.

This and the following lessons cover the topic of Vedānta and ethics. Vedānta has two meanings. The first is the literal sense – “End of Vedas” – and refers to the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads—the latter part of the Vedas. The second sense of “Vedanta” is a scholastic one, and refers to a philosophical orientation that attempts to explain the cryptic Vedānta Sūtra (Brahma Sūtra) of Bādarāyaṇa, which aims at being a summary of the End of the Vedas. We shall (...) pursue the question of ethics in both senses of Vedānta. In this module we shall examine the ethical theory of Deontology found in the Upaniṣads. Having explored the implications of this model for moral philosophy, we can reflect upon the three commentarial approaches. In this lesson, we will examine Śaṅkara’s Advaita approach. Advaita Vedānta, especially in Śaṅkara's form, presents a version of moral scepticism, or more strongly, moral irrealism. In this account, there is nothing objective about ethics: it mediates our desires-oriented psychology, and should be dispensed with along with the desire-oriented psychology. Śaṅkara seems to come close to doing the impossible: saying insightful things about what he takes to be a fiction, which is the individual self, for which ethics is essential. (shrink)

Transcript of selected papers presented in the National Seminar on Contemporary Relevance of the Philosophy of Vedanta, organized by the Dept. of Philosophy, University of Kerala, sponsored by Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi in 2005.

Vedanta is one of the world's most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. Vedanta is the philosophical foundation of Hinduism; but while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries, all cultures, and all religious backgrounds. The unity of (...) existence is one of the great themes of Vedanta and an essential pillar of its philosophy. Unity is the song of life; it is the grand theme underlying the rich variations that exist throughout the cosmos. Whatever we see, whatever we experience, is only a manifestation of this eternal oneness. The divinity at the core of our being is the same divinity that illumines the sun, the moon, and the stars. There is no place where we, infinite in nature, do not exist. (shrink)

This article seeks to pluralize current scholarly perceptions of what constitutes Advaita Vedānta in colonial India. It suggests, in particular, that the tendency to concentrate on the so-called “neo-Vedānta” of a handful of cosmopolitan reformers has obscured other kinds of innovative Vedānta-inspired discourses that have significantly shaped the formation of modern Hindu consciousness. These discourses are indebted, in ways that are only beginning to be understood, to religious traditions rooted in particular regions and vernacular languages. The article illustrates this argument (...) with reference to the Kōvilūr Ātīṉam, a Vedānta-affiliated monastic institution in Tamil-speaking South India founded by Mutturāmaliṅka Ñāṉatēcika Cuvāmikaḷ. Examining the significance of this figure’s life story for the wealthy Nāṭṭukkōṭṭai Ceṭṭiyār merchant community that comprises the Ātīṉam’s social base, the article explores how social aspirations, traditions of monastic authority, and vernacular Vedāntic literature contribute toward a colonial project of caste self-fashioning that I refer to as “Ceṭṭiyār Vedānta”. (shrink)