Advaya

Inviation in satsang & the ‘holy sequence’ II – Philip Renard

 

Why the name Advaya?

 

This site is called Advaya. This is a Sanskrit term, which

means ‘non-duality’. This term has been used very often in

texts of both Mahayana Buddhism as well as Advaita Vedanta,

from the beginning of the Common Era. Because the

term advaya has been used by both of these non- dualistic

movements, it is highlighted on this site: as a fundamental

starting point for a possible insight in the underlying unity of

both approaches – and in fact the unity of all religious and

philosophical approaches, despite their different vocabulary.

 

As a term ‘advaya’ may serve as a designation of that which

is prior to any difference. Each religious interpretation, each

articulation of ‘the heart of the matter’, from whichever

source, is in fact based on a core that is without any

difference. The core or heart of the matter is universal,

and advaya is one of the best designations for universal and

non-differential. Because of its pointing to this universal

core, advaya could be considered as being ‘the greatest gift the

East has given to the world’. 

    

     Advaya or non-duality is the insight that reality is not

something ‘outside’ a human being, neither only ‘inside’, but

unseparated, ‘not two’. One’s true nature is not separate from

a higher Principle, whatever this may be called. Realisation of

this non-separateness as one’s own nature is what this is all

about.

 

In spite of the fact that non-duality as a ‘view’ has been

developed in the East and reconfirmed and transmitted in an

age-long chain of teacher onto disciple (by the way also in the

West since some decades), the truth of it is of all places.

 

Hence it is not necessary to have the form in which

non-duality is transmitted be interlinked anymore with one of

the specific Eastern traditions.

 

Nowadays it makes utmost sense to recognize all the

various non-dualistic movements as forms of one and the

same Non-dualism, and to recognize this Non-dualism as

such (so disposed of the connection with whatever specific

movement or atmosphere) as the main source of information

about the way of liberation.

(To continue)

 

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