Review:
An essential Advaita Vedanta- book, more than 1000 years old. This book contains besides Raphael's (who is author and Master in the Western Metaphysical Tradition as well as the Vedanta) translation and commentary also the original Shankara-text in Sankrit (transliterated). Shankara presents his teaching as "a very stimulating realization dialogue between an advaitin Master and a" disciple striving for final freedom and realization. (see preface).
It's a book whose vibrations "jump over to" the reader (still today - after more than 1000 years). An ancient book which presents Advaita crystal-clear and timelessly up-to-date. So for instance in the chapter "Meditate on Brahman in the lotus of your heart" with the sutras 254 ff.: "That which is beyond status, beyond religious creed and beyond family; that which is beyond name and form, beyond the qualities, beyond place, beyond time and beyond sensory objects: that is Brahman, and That Thou art, contemplate that within yourself ... That which is not touched by ... hunger, thirst, suffering, ... , decrepitude and death ... cannot be contemplated by the sensory organs; that which the intellect cannot know; ... that is Brahman, That Thou art, contemplate that within yourself."
For me personally, i found a very helpful meditation aid in the following sutra 505, p. 216: "The witness is not touched by the properties of things, it is distinct from them, because it has no modifications and is indifferent, like a lamp that lights a room is not touched by the properties of the room." --Customer Review By DK
Ancient and totally up-to-date - Advaita crystal-clear ---
An essential Advaita Vedanta book, more than 1000 years old. This book contains besides Raphael's (who is author and Master in the Western Metaphysical Tradition as well as the Vedanta) translation and commentary also the original Shankara-text in Sankrit (transliterated). Shankara presents his teaching as "a very stimulating realization dialogue between an advaitin Master and a" disciple striving for final freedom and realization. (see preface).
--- It's a book whose vibrations "jump over to" the reader (still today - after more than 1000 years). An ancient book which presents Advaita crystal-clear and timelessly up-to-date. So for instance in the chapter "Meditate on Brahman in the lotus of your heart" with the sutras 254 ff.: "That which is beyond status, beyond religious creed and beyond family; that which is beyond name and form, beyond the qualities, beyond place, beyond time and beyond sensory objects: that is Brahman, and That Thou art, contemplate that within yourself ... That which is not touched by ... hunger, thirst, suffering, ... , decrepitude and death ... cannot be contemplated by the sensory organs; that which the intellect cannot know; ... that is Brahman, That Thou art, contemplate that within yourself."
--- For me personally, i found a very helpful meditation aid in the following sutra 505, p. 216: "The witness is not touched by the properties of things, it is distinct from them, because it has no modifications and is indifferent, like a lamp that lights a room is not touched by the properties of the room." --Customer Review By DK
From the Publisher:
Advaita Vedanta is pure metaphysics because its fundamental theme is the search for the absolute as pure Real.
-- One of the instruments with which it seeks to become attuned to the Absolute is Viveka, intellective discernment at a suprasensory level (nous). The Absolute cannot be comprehended with our sensory-mental instrument, which is imperfect, but it can be comprehended with an adequate supramental cognitive instrument, which acts as a bridge.
-- The analytical and discursive mind, being relative, can comprehend only relative data, just as the sense of sight can detect only a certain limited range of colors. The end of Vedanta is to give the individual complete liberation from individual and universal ignorance-avidya, demonstrating that the Absolute is One-without-a-second and that the embodied jiva is equally "That".
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.