Christianity and Advaita Vedanta: The Kingdom of God is Within

Midjourney AI painting of woman standing before a giant brain in a museum

This essay is a meditation on Christianity and Advaita Vedanta, specifically Jesus’s mystical insight that the kingdom of God is “within” and its perfect parallel with the concept of Self as understood in Advaita Vedanta. As always, I owe all my understanding of Advaita Vedanta to the wise and erudite fountain of Vedantic knowledge that … Read more

Advaita Vedanta and Christianity: Towards a Cosmopolitan Spirituality

photograph of Christian painting inside of cathedral

This essay is a partly autobiographical story of how I discovered the beautiful combination of Advaita Vedanta and Christianity, along with an attempt to work out a Cosmopolitan Christian-Vedantic Spirituality inspired by the wonderful wisdom of Swami Vivekananda and his still-unrealized vision for a religion of the future. I believe any modern spirituality worth its … Read more

What is Brahman in Advaita Vedanta?

Painting of the cosmos flowing into a human brain

What is Brahman in Advaita Vedanta? What is the Absolute? This short essay will attempt to answer this question in plain English, to the extent that is even possible given the inherent limitations of language when talking about this subject matter. I owe an infinite debt to the wisdom and erudition of Swami Sarvapriyananda for … Read more

Advaita Vedanta Explained Simply

Painting of adi-shankaracharya

This essay will not be focused on rigorous argumentation and logic-chopping. I will rather focus on stating conclusions about fundamental reality that I have learned from studying Advaita Vedanta from Swami Sarvapriyananda’s lectures (freely available on YouTube). I am not expecting you, the reader, to accept these statements intellectually. Rather this is a poetic exercise … Read more

Advaita Vedanta: Why You Are Not the Body

black and white photo of a human back with their head bent forward and the spine sticking out

“You are not the body, nor is the body yours; you are not the doer nor the enjoyer. You are Consciousness itself, the eternal Witness, and free. Go about happily.” ~ Ashtavakra Gita, Chap. 15, verse 4 In this statement is contained the essence of Advaita Vedanta. In this essay, I will defend the following … Read more

Advaita Vedanta and Christian Love

an open book with pages folded in the shape of a heart

This post is a short meditation on the relationship between Vedanta and Christianity as it relates to the Christian ethics of love. I am grateful to Swami Sarvapriyananda for his teachings on Advaita Vedanta. All my knowledge of Vedanta is thanks to him, but any error is mine. “Be Grateful to the Man you help, … Read more

The Negative Theology of Advaita Vedanta

small waves dancing on top of the ocean

I humbly dedicate this post to Swami Sarvapriyananda, who has graciously shared so many masterful lectures on Advaita Vedanta on the Vedanta Society of NY’s YouTube channel. If I am successful even a smidgeon in articulating the wisdom of Advaita Vedanta, it is due to him. “Only the hand that erases can write the true … Read more

A Gesture Towards a Perennial Philosophical Idealism

Pebbles in a river

The fundamental and most basic thing we have knowledge of is that of our subjective experience, our point of view, and our perspective on the world. Every sight, every sound, every feeling, every thought, every emotion—all of these experiences are experienced from a particular subjective perspective. This subjective perspective is what philosophers mean by “inner … Read more

Soul or No-Soul? Advaita Vedanta and the Metaphysics of Self

Statue of eyeball

This essay is about Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism. Let me state at the outset that I am not an expert on either one, so any mistakes in understanding are entirely my own. According to my understanding, Advaita Vedanta states that (1) There is a True Self or Soul (The Atman) (2) This True Self is … Read more

Buddhism, Christianity, and an Experimental Model of Spirituality

Statue of Jesus

I continue to have doubts about any complete disavowal of Christianity. As soon as I discard the institutional or metaphysical trappings of Christianity, I begin to feel drawn to Jesus the human as an awakened being, just as the Buddha was also just an ordinary human being who came to be enlightened. Both were extraordinary … Read more