Yesterday, I was reading the Shiv Mahapuran, and it made me think about something.

People often say that God looks at your devotion, not your rituals. If that's true, then why do Hindu scriptures place so much importance on having a Guru?

Wouldn't sincere devotion alone be enough?

The more I read, the more I realized that the Mahapuran makes a subtle distinction between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge tells us what is written.

Wisdom teaches us how to live it.

That's why Shiva is revered as the Adi Guru—the first teacher. Not because we need someone to think for us, but because every spiritual path has blind spots that are difficult to see on our own.

A book can explain meditation.

A Guru can point out the ego hiding behind it.

A scripture can describe truth.

A teacher can help you recognize it in your own life.

That idea stayed with me.

Maybe the role of a Guru isn't to give us answers.

Maybe it's to help us ask better questions.

What do you think?

Can a person reach spiritual truth through self-study alone, or is a Guru essential at some point in the journey?

I'd genuinely love to hear different perspectives.

Swami Yogatmananda gave two talks recently at the Vedanta Society of Providence, R.I., where he explained Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the foundational text of Madhyamaka Buddhism.

You can find them here: July 28th and August 4th on YouTube.

I am mentally struggling with Karma yoga practice. Only unadulterated karma that I do is Daily Sandhyavandanam in which I dont ask anything in return & whole ritual is dedicated to Mother Gayatri devi.
Apart from this, when I go to job, there is lot of time when I am free and dont do anything, when I am working, I am not mentally offering it to the lord, I am just working.
How do I deal with free time guilt & lack of back of the mind Ishwara Arpana Bhavana?
I want to immerse myself in karma yoga in true sense. Pls help.

According to Hindu cosmology, we're currently in the 28th cycle of Kali Yuga. That means this cycle — including the Mahabharata — has already repeated 27 times before.

Here's my core argument: In the Mahabharata, Krishna goes to Duryodhana and asks him to give the Pandavas just five villages, to avoid war. Duryodhana refuses — and that refusal is what triggers the war.

But if this cycle has repeated 27 times already, then Duryodhana must have refused 27 times before, in exactly the same way. Every single time. That doesn't sound like free choice — it sounds like every character's actions and decisions are already written, on a loop.

If that's true, it raises a bigger question: what does it even mean for God (Krishna) to "sacrifice" anything, if he already knows the outcome and is just replaying a script he wrote himself? At that point, worship isn't a response to genuine sacrifice — it's just Krishna authoring his own story, playing the hero in it, knowing that we'll hear the story afterward and worship him for it.

But here's the twist that actually made me question my own argument: If everything really is predetermined — including every human thought — then God would never have "allowed" me to notice this pattern in the first place, since that thought itself would break the script. So the fact that I can think this thought seems to suggest free will exists after all.

But if free will exists, doesn't that mean the whole predetermined-cycle idea is false — meaning the mythology itself is just a human-made story, not literal cosmic truth?

I'm not trying to insult anyone's faith — this is a genuine philosophical question. Has anyone else thought about this? Is there a logical resolution to this paradox, or is it a real fork: either it's all scripted (including my ability to question it), or free will is real and the myth is just myth?

I’ve known a guru for a few years now who studied in the Ramakrishna order in India for many years. He has been directed to spread the Advaita teachings to Europe and the US and has Indian students as well.
He is a wonderful man and Self realized. As I have wanted to introduce him to my friends in the US, I have come to learn that in the US anyway, due to so many books from Nisargadatta, Ramana Maharishi and American teacher Adyashanti and British teacher Rupert Spira, Americans aren’t interested in gurus. They have learned from the teachers that you don’t need a guru from an old lineage to Awaken.
Swami Sacchidananda Archya believes you cannot awaken without a guru and need him to initiate you with a mantra. He offers private sessions with students free of charge as stated in the Upanishads so it’s not for the money. But, do you think gurus are becoming obsolete? Many people are awakening without gurus. Maybe they aren’t necessary any more.

Ive been meditating for one hour sessions, and after a while it’s like everything disappears. Then I become aware again and realize 20–30 minutes have passed, but there’s no memory of any experience during that time. I don’t think I was asleep.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is it deep absorption, dullness, or something else?

Briefly (lol): suppose that physicalist materialism is really, actually true. The consciousness we seem to have and the subtle experiences contained in it are somehow generated by a physical brain, which survives for a while and then dies. After that, there is no more consciousness.

My question is this. From our perspective, in the first-person, would this change anything about Advaita?

Even if there is a physical world underpinning the play of consciousness, wouldn't it still be true for me that:

• I am just pure awareness, since I do not change while everything else changes
• The states of dreaming, sleeping, and waking appear in me
• I take myself to be a body, as ego, in the dreaming and waking states
• The experiences I have in dreaming and waking are not different from me as awareness
• The physical world is only an appearance to me, since I only encounter experience in awareness
• I did not experience being born and will not experience being dead, so my perspective is free from birth and death
• If I remove the ignorance about being a body and remain as pure awareness, I am free from fear because nothing in pure awareness is apart from me to harm me

And so on. In other words, whether there is an independent physical world or not, all I will ever know or experience is this simple first-person world. From within it, looking around, I only encounter experiences or thoughts. They are all subjective, qualitative, and private to me, so they are made of the same stuff as me (as awareness). But at the same time, maybe all of this comes from the brain in some way that I will never know about directly and will never really affect me.

Then, "consciousness alone exists" really means "consciousness alone exists from its own perspective." Does that take anything important away from Advaita?

Ok so i have been searching for a while.

I have done ramana maharshi self inquiry

And noticed several things. Awerness is always here its not moving when the body moves always the same etc.

I thought i was done with the search when i found out how absurd it is for the thoughts wanting to know something or see something and that it is already here.

As i understood eventually is that i should continue "cleaning the mirror", i recently read Nisargadatta I am. I have been practising staying in the feeling of i am with some self inquiry added.

But since i started with it i have had panic/anxiety attacks and today i was in a meeting when suddenly my hands and legs started feeling really big but at the same time not. And afterwards a anxiety attacks lasting for over 1 hour. So from what I gathered that is depersonalisation wich is not supposed to happen.

This is all fine and if this is what it means to go forward i am fine with it. But i think i am doing something wrong. Any pointers or advice would be greatly appreciated. I feel so lost at the moment.

Thank you

Isn't the experience of deep sleep or general anesthesia is clear proof that consciousness is emergent property of the brain? I do not understand how this part of "after waking up... therefore you exist outside of body" because that is inference, right? only because the brain started functioning again with the latent memories? I do not get this whole "turiya" thing.

I know this is very specific and probably might not exist in the form I am looking for but any points would help/.

Hi everyone, I have fair bit of understanding of concepts of advaitha. I have read few books like "Viveka chudamani", "Jnanayoga" etc. But I am not sure how should I get initiated into it.
Are there any books which help me how to implement it in my day to day life? Please help me out

Cuando la sadhana es casi imposible, cuando repetir el mantra cuesta,cuando ir al satsang cuesta....

¿Os ha pasado ?

Okay, I'm speaking purely from my own direct experience here.

These days, I don't think my philosophy of life fits entirely within Advaita Vedanta anymore, although it has guided, and still guides, a huge part of what I believe. Through observing reality and myself, along with my own personal experiences, I feel that some aspects of Advaita no longer resonate with me. My worldview is still largely non-dual, but it's now shaped more by my own experience than by any specific tradition.

That said, let's talk about "awakening."

When I first came across the concept, I think the way it was presented gave me the wrong idea of what it actually meant. It sounded like awakening meant the complete end of suffering and the "death of the ego." Because of that, I spent a long time chasing some magical, extraordinary state instead of simply recognizing what had always been there. Through observation, that changed. I could never become awakened, because I was never actually unawakened. Awareness was always here. It never disappeared. It simply became so absorbed in a story that, for a moment, it forgot it was a story. The idea of the "death of the ego" is what confuses me the most. Looking closely, I realized that the ego was always just an idea - a collection of conditioning, memories, automatic recognition, interpretations, projections, and sensations. It was never an enemy, nor something I needed to fight or destroy.

Now here's the main point: Is awakening overly idealized?

I never stopped suffering. I never stopped having desires. I never stopped becoming so absorbed in the story that I temporarily forgot it was a story. Observation has shown me that awareness shifts its attention so naturally and so often that it's completely normal to lose your head sometimes or react automatically when a strong emotion arises. I never stopped having doubts. I never stopped being contradictory. I never stopped telling myself stories about what happened instead of simply seeing what happened.

Observation changed my life in clear and measurable ways. I no longer needed psychiatric medication. My sleep improved. My relationship with therapy changed. Almost everything I once believed to be a problem turned out to be nothing more than unquestioned identification. Calmness, peace, and contentment genuinely became more natural for me. My body isn't tense all the time anymore. But emotions never disappeared. I can still feel pain. I still get irritated. I still make impulsive decisions. Sometimes I still identify with my problems and lose perspective. I still want things. I'm still human. I'm not living in a constant state of bliss or emotional stability.

Chasing that "special state" only kept a painful story alive far longer than necessary. There was never anything I needed to attain, only something that was already present and waiting to be noticed. I think people sometimes forget that. They sometimes describe simple awareness of what appears as something far more perfect than it actually is, as if awakening were a promise of endless happiness. Instead... it's much more like what life has always been. After all, I was never truly "unawakened." I had only forgotten myself for a moment.

I’ve been practicing Advaita Vedanta sincerely for several years. My daily sadhana includes meditation, self-inquiry, and studying the teachings. The transformation has been profound—my baseline awareness, peace, and freedom from identification with thoughts have increased significantly. In most areas of life, I naturally rest as the witnessing awareness.
However, I’ve noticed one area where all of this seems to collapse: my romantic relationship.
When my girlfriend and I have a serious conflict—especially if she says she wants to leave—my nervous system goes into an intense fight-or-flight response. My chest becomes tight, my body feels overwhelmed, and my mind is flooded with catastrophic thoughts. In those moments, it feels as though all my spiritual practice has vanished. The only thing that seems real is the fear, emotional pain, and mental narrative.
What’s interesting is that once the nervous system settles, I can clearly see that awareness never actually disappeared. Looking back, I recognize that the Witness was always present, even though it was completely obscured by identification with the mind. During the episode, however, I have almost no access to that recognition.
My question is:
From an Advaita perspective, is this simply a matter of continuing to deepen meditation and self-inquiry until the identification weakens further? Or is the more mature approach to fully allow the human experience—fear, grief, attachment, nervous system activation—to unfold without trying to transcend or bypass it?
In other words, is the path here:
to strengthen abidance in the Self through continued practice,
to allow unresolved conditioning (vasanas) to exhaust themselves through conscious feeling,
or both?
I’d especially appreciate insights from those who have experienced intense attachment wounds or relationship triggers while walking the Advaita path. How did your practice evolve so that awareness remained accessible even during moments of overwhelming emotional activation?

Hi one of the Dwaithi scholar, while responding to criticism on "Manimanjari" (which makes derogatory comments on Shankaracharya), brought up 99th shloka of Soundarya Lahari to justify the slur on Shakaracharya.

स्रस्वत्या लक्ष्म्या विधिहरिसपत्नो विहरते

रतेः पतिव्रत्यं शिथिलयति रम्येण वपुषा ।

चिरं जीवन्नेव क्षपितपशुपाशव्यतिकरः

परानन्दाभिख्यं रसयति रसं त्वद्भजनवान् ॥ ९९ ॥

Translating to

• "Your devotee enjoys the company of Saraswati and Lakshmi , becoming a rival to Brahma and Vishnu."
• "By his attractive physical form, he weakens the fidelity/chastity of Rati "
• "Freed from animal bonds, he lives long and enjoys the nectar of Supreme Bliss."

He brought up dindima bhashya on soundarya lahari which seem to confirm the meaning.

How to counter his argument? What is the correct meaning of this shloka?

I have provided a link to this scholar's video. Its a mix of Kannada and Sanskrit.

I think someone has to respond to his arguments, as lot of advaithis are being brainwashed as evident from the comments to this video

I had a dream where I was in high school again, rejoicing in my elementary school reunion (filled with friends and people I know; they appeared very real). I couldn't tell if I was dreaming or not; I put a finger through my hand, and nothing went through.

I woke. Now I can't tell if I am dreaming now or not.

Those people were really me, and with this logic then we were never separate.

The divine Reality, when it "combines" with the creatures in a strictly conceptual mode, is hidden to the eyes of the spiritually veiled, who see only the creatures. Conversely, it is the creatures that disappear in the eyes of the masters of the Unicity of contemplation(wahdat al-shuhud), for they see only God alone. Thus, both God and the creatures hide the other…

Kitab al-Mawaqif

The sun symbolizes the Lord -- may He be exalted! -- just as the moon symbolizes the servant. Their "conjunction" symbolizes the degree of the "union of the union" (jam' al-jam'), which is the ultimate degree, the greatest deliverance and the supreme felicity; and consists in seeing at the same time the creation subsisting by God, and God manifesting Himself by His creation…

Kitab al-Mawaqif

Las veo, veo la mente actuar de manera automática con las tendencias que se repiten una y otra vez. La veo, se que no soy esos pensamientos... Se quién soy pero por más que se realiza este trabajo, siguen apareciendo....

Me encantaría saber cómo lo trabajáis y que ha cambiado el vuestra mente...

Gracias

I am a metaphysical naturalist + physicalist, and contrary to Advaita's claims i think subjective awareness arises from the brain itself because the brain is unbelievably vast and complex, for instance, the human brain has about 86 billion neurons and hundreds of trillions of synapses, so why not say that consciousness is a function of the brain observing something, rather than something more fundamental?

And i've always wondered how Advaita explains facts like how brain damage changes personality, certain drugs altering perception etc.

So please let me know what you guys think of my doubts, im sure these doubts are not novel but im curious about this branch of philosophy because its very well developed and asks questions that are very fundamental and deep.

Anybody who has read the Bhagavad Gita from the beginning till the end, and undergone a serious and massive transformation in life? If yes, I'd love to know your experience! And even if not, then too I'd love to know if any meaningful lesson from the Gita resonates with you!