In mainstream western discourse, writers and speakers are often accused of conflating ‘religion’ — an impossibly broad term encompassing infinitely many practices and beliefs — with ‘Christianity’, the religion we are most familiar with, to the neglect of other traditions.
Having said that, the term and concept of ‘religion’ as a separable element of a person’s life is quite modern, and quite western. For most of history, what we might call a person’s ‘religion’ was, to them, just whatever underlying philosophy animated practically everything they did and thought; the very assumptions from which other thought and behaviour springs.
Nowhere have both of these facts become more obvious to me than in my study of Indian philosophical traditions. ‘Hinduism’ is an exonym — a term coined by outsiders, not the practitioners — named for the Indus River, and therefore really just meaning whatever beliefs and practices exist among people living in a certain area. Within Hinduism, therefore, you will find theists and atheists, monists and dualists, ritual focus and philosophical focus, and all kinds of disagreements.
Really, what we are engaging with when approaching this tradition is better thought of as simply Indian philosophy, which may contain what we would call theology or religion, but also contains metaphysical discussions as detached from religion as Descartes’ cogito was detached from his Catholicism.
The most relevant school of Indian philosophy to my interest in consciousness (particularly in panpsychism and dualism) seems to be Advaita Vedanta. The Vedas are perhaps the most ancient extant scripture. Anta means ‘end’ or ‘limit’. Therefore Vedanta refers to the last (most recent) parts of the Vedas, known as the Upanishads. Dvaita means ‘dualism’, and advaita means ‘non-dual’. Therefore, Advaita Vedanta is a non-dualistic philosophy based primarily on the Upanishads.
Dualism in this context refers to consciousness. Dualists think mind and body are distinct substances that somehow interact with each other in people and animals. Non-dualists, or monists, believe there is only one kind of substance. Materialists say the only substance is matter. Idealists say the only substance is consciousness.
Advaita Vedanta teaches that everything is consciousness. What appears as separate from consciousness is an illusion. And while it is rooted in the Upanishads, you needn’t rely upon them to establish its ideas. Advaita Vedanta is a philosophy more than a theology, and one with important parallels to western idealism.
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I am joined in today’s episode by Swami Sarvapriyananda, a Hindu monk and Minister in Charge of the Vedanta Society of New York. He provides an overview of Advaita Vedanta and its theory of consciousness and ultimate reality. He also discusses its connection to ‘Hinduism’, introduces the Vedas and Upanishads, and helps to unpack a religious tradition which can sometimes seem complicated and daunting.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - An Intro to Hinduism and Advaita Vedanta
13:59 - What Are the Upanishads
19:59 - Where Do the Vedas (Scripture) Come From?
26:53 - What Does “Upanishad” Mean?
32:28 - What Do the Upanishads Teach Us?
44:59 - What is Brahman, or Ultimate Existence?
01:00:43 - What is the True Nature of Consciousness?
01:06:06 - Non-Dualism in Advaita Vedanta
01:16:26 - Why Isn’t There Just One Big Consciousness?
01:26:59 - What is the Self?
01:34:21 - Are Brahman and Atman the Same Thing?
01:43:17 - What Does ‘God’ Mean in Hinduism?
01:46:59 - Does Hinduism Believe Other Religions are Incorrect?
