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A Western Perspective on Advaita Vedanta, Through the Teachings of Ramana Maharshi

Max Cooper (University of Ottawa/University of Delhi) (2013)

Introduction

The Indian philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, finding its earliest expression in ancient texts
called the Upanishads (c. 700 – 400 bce (cf. Roebuck xi)), has long been a source of fascination
for Western thinkers. A.N. Whitehead opined that “Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics
the human mind has conceived” (Smith 135), while for Arthur Schopenhauer “In the whole
world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the
solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death” (from Muller, 8). Max Muller concurred with
Schopenhauer: “If philosophy is meant to be a preparation for a happy death, or Euthanasia, I
know of no better preparation for it than the Vedanta Philosophy” (ibid., 8). We will try to
discover what has allowed Vedanta to be so beneficial and elevating, to be a solace for life and a
preparation for death. Our understanding will be facilitated by the life and teachings of 20th
century Indian sage Ramana Maharshi, whose practical distillation of these once esoteric
teachings is among the most straightforward, and who himself as a Self-realized jnani may be
seen as a living exemplar of the goal of the philosophy. Ramana taught a practice of constant
self-inquiry, leading to an awareness of the inmost Self or Atman. This ‘Self’ is very different
from typical Western conceptions of ‘self’ – it is not the body, individual personality, or even the
mind, but rather a consciousness underlying all of these. Ultimately this Self is not even an
‘individual’ Self, being non-different from Brahman, the first principle of the entire cosmos. In
the course of exploring Advaita Vedanta’s1 teachings, paying particular attention to possible
barriers to understanding from a Western perspective, we will try to discover why this
philosophy has been so edifying for many thinkers and whether it can be so too for us.

Ramana’s Awakening and the Nature of the Self

1
Because many Sanskrit words will be repeated quite often throughout the text, we will follow the practice of
italicizing only for their first use, with the exception of places where it makes the text more clear.
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According to Ramana’s Advaita teachings, the actions of one’s body are singularly
unimportant to understanding who one really is; however, it will be helpful to our project to
briefly relate some circumstances of the sage’s life. Ramana (1879-1950) underwent a
spontaneous awakening experience in his uncle’s house in Madurai, South India, at the age of
sixteen which ultimately led him to renounce worldly life. Within six weeks he had escaped
alone with three rupees in his pocket, reaching by train the holy mountain Arunachala, from
whose immediate environs he would never again depart. Eventually an ashram grew up around
him, with seekers travelling from the world over to visit the sage.

Ramana has described his adolescent awakening experience as follows: he was sitting
alone when he was suddenly overtaken by a “violent fear of death” – seemingly unaccountable
as he was then in perfect health. This “drove [his] mind inwards,” and he asked himself: “what
does [death] mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies . . .” (Osborne 9). What followed
represented an illumination to the presence of the deathless spirit:

‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the
burning ground . . . But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body I? It is
silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the
‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies
but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the
deathless spirit. (Osborne 9)

He recounts that this “was not dull thought,” but “flashed through me vividly as living truth
which I perceived directly, almost without thought process” (9) – a wholly intuitive intimation.
“From that moment onwards, the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination”
(9); Ramana’s life, his mode of being and perceiving, was irreversibly changed:

Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued
unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various
notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note2 that
underlies and blends with all the other notes (9-10).

2
“The monotone persisting through a Hindu piece of music, like the thread on which beads are strung, represents the
Self persisting through all the forms of being” (Osborne 10n).
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This represented a total transformation from his past state: “Previous to that crisis I had no clear
perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct
interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it” (10). After this, however, total
“absorption in the Self” was unceasing (10).

Nature of the Self – Not the Body, Ego, or Mind

What is this “Self” of which Ramana speaks? To the modern Western mind, “dwelling
permanently in the Self” might seem to imply what we often call ‘selfishness’ or ‘egotism’; but
this is not what is meant here. As suggested by Ramana’s experience above, this Self is neither
the ego, the body, or the personality. Ramana made this clear to Sivaprakasam Pillai, one of his
early devotees:

The real I or Self is not the body, nor any of the five senses, nor the sense objects,
nor the organs of action, nor the prana (breath or vital force), nor the mind, nor
even the deep sleep state where there is no cognisance of these. (Osborne 101)

What then is this real Self?

After rejecting each of these and saying, ‘this I am not,’ that which alone remains
is the ‘I,’ and that is Consciousness. . . . This is also called Mouna (silence) or
Atma (self). That is the only thing that is. (101)

The true ‘I’ or ‘Self’ is essentially consciousness (chit), and no part of it is external to
consciousness – it is not the body, the senses, or even the mind. Here Ramana is in harmony with
the Indian tradition of psychology, which strongly emphasizes a distinction between chit
(consciousness) and mind (manas). This mind/consciousness distinction is not emphasized in the
Western philosophical tradition. We can see this in the thought of early modern philosophy’s
champion of the ‘mind/body’ distinction, René Descartes. Descartes did not conceive of
consciousness as something separate from the mind; rather, in his intuitive reply to his own
question, “But what then am I?,” he declared, “A thing that thinks. . . . A thing that doubts,
understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses . . .” (“Meditation Two” (31)). For Descartes, the
thinking mind was his inmost being – what he fundamentally was.
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For Ramana and Advaita Vedanta the true Self is distinct from the mind. It is neither a
doer nor a thinker, but rather is the most basic witness which observes all doings and all
thoughts. Indeed, because the Self is not made of thought, Advaita suggests that to dwell in the
Self will bring peace and quiet to the mind: when one dwells in the Self, thoughts do not come.
Or if they do come, they may not be imbued with their former sense of urgency and seriousness,
because one no longer identifies with them: one knows that one is not the mind. This helps
explain why Ramana above characterised the pure Self also as “mouna,” silence – to rest in the
Self is also to take a rest from the usual cacophony of thought that we more or less constantly
experience.

Steady River of Quietness

This may help explain why visitors to Ramana’s ashram often nearly immediately found
their minds being put at ease, often even without any verbal teaching. Indeed, for the first several
years after his arrival at Arunachala, Ramana maintained total silence; many assumed that he
must have taken such a vow. Years later he would begin to speak, and would deliver teachings as
we quoted above. But even during his silent years, his mere presence had a powerful effect. His
first European visitor, F.H. Humphreys, related that “On reaching [his] cave we sat before him at
his feet and said nothing. We sat thus for a long time and I felt lifted out of myself”; “For half an
hour I looked into the Maharshi’s eyes, which never changed their expression of deep
contemplation. I began to realize somewhat that the body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost . . .
My own feelings were indescribable. . .” (from Osborne 55). Paul Brunton arrived at
Ramanashram “more a skeptic than a believer” (Osborne 55), but was so influenced by his time
spent with the Maharshi that he eventually wrote a book that made the sage famous. On his first
meeting, his initial reaction was a “perplexity at being totally ignored” by the sage, then followed
by a “strange fascination” beginning to grip him as they sat in silence. “But,” he wrote,

it is not till the second hour of the uncommon scene that I become aware of a
silent, resistless change which is taking place within my mind. One by one, the
questions which I prepared in the train with such meticulous accuracy drop away.
For it does not now seem to matter whether they are asked or not, and it does not
matter whether I solve the problems which have hitherto troubled me. I know only
that a steady river of quietness seems to be flowing near me, that a great peace is
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penetrating the inner reaches of my being, and that my thought-tortured brain is

beginning to arrive at some rest. (Brunton 220; quoted in Osborne 55-56)

A feeling of inner peace was one experience most common to visitors from the ashram, and it
often occurred without the need of words. Ramana’s “real teaching,” Osborne notes, “was
through silence” (54).

The Self as Divine: Relationship to God

Ramana would later further elucidate to Paul Brunton the nature of the Self and its
realization: “The sense of ‘I’ pertains to the person, the body, and brain. When a man knows his
true Self for the first time something else arises from the depths of his being and takes possession
of him. That something is behind the mind; it is infinite, divine, eternal” (from Osborne 11-12).
We must continue to emphasize the importance of the distinction between the sense of the
personal ‘I’ and the real ‘I,’ or consciousness. The latter is also sometimes called by Ramana the
‘I – I’ (the real I behind the I) (cf. Powell, x); it is “behind the mind,” and also behind the
personality. Intriguing is Ramana’s description of this Self as “infinite, divine, eternal” – in what
sense does he mean this Self to be “divine”? What is its relationship to other manifestations of
God, such as the personal Gods of popular religious practice? Ramana elucidates this in his
Forty Verses on Reality:

All schools of thought postulate the fundamental triad – God, soul, and world –
although all three are manifestations of the One. The belief that the three remain
eternally three lasts only as long as the ‘I’ or ego lasts. To destroy the ego and
stay in one’s own state is best. (verse 2)

Ramana teaches that once one eliminates the personal ego, one comes to see God, soul, and
world as fundamentally One. To “stay in one’s own state” is to dwell in the Self – the perceiver
behind the mind and personality – and by doing so one sees that reality is not manifold.
Commentator S.S. Cohen clarifies that for Ramana it is one’s identification with the body that
gives rise to seeing a differentiated triad of God, soul, and world:

The ‘I-am-the-body’ notion compels the admission of an individuality (jiva), a

world, and its creator, as three distinct, perennial, co-existing entities. [Ramana]
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perceives a single existence of which these are an illusory manifestation which,

however, vanishes the moment the eternal ‘I’ is apprehended and the ego perishes.
(Cohen 124)

For Ramana there is only one reality; this reality is both identified with and also realized through
the apprehension of this eternal Self, which is infinite and divine.

Advaita Vedanta: Atman = Brahman

This infinite, divine, and eternal Self is ultimately also “the only thing that is” (Osborne
101; p. 3 above). What does it mean for this Self to be the only thing that is? This Self is not only
not ‘personal,’ it is ultimately not ‘individual’ either: it is the Self of all existence. This is a
crucial point for Advaita Vedanta. Paul Deussen, one of the first scholars to introduce Advaita to
the west, summed up the entire philosophy thus: “[Advaita Vedanta’s] fundamental thought” is
that “Atman=Brahman” (Deussen 39); we may see the concept of Brahman as “the first principle
so far as it is comprehended in the universe,” and the concept of Atman as the first principle “so
far as it is known in the inner self of man” (38). So then,

If for our present purpose we hold fast to this distinction of Brahman as the
cosmical principle of the universe, the atman as the psychical [of the ‘psyche’],
the fundamental thought of the entire Upanishad philosophy may be expressed by
the simple equation: Brahman = Atman

That is to say—the Brahman, the power which presents itself to us materialised in

all existing things, which creates, sustains, preserves, and receives back into itself
again all worlds, this eternal infinite divine power is identical with the atman,
with that which, after stripping off everything external, we discover in ourselves
as our real most essential being, our individual self, the soul. (39)

What we are, after stripping off all the layers covering up our most essential self – discounting
the body; the senses; the personality; likes and dislikes; and finally even the calculating and
discursive mind – is a bare witness consciousness, or chit. But this is not only what we are: we
are not simply our own individual chit or jiva (individuated soul), present in a world populated
by many other discrete jivas. Advaita Vedanta posits rather that the basis of my consciousness is
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in fact identical with the basis of the appearance of the entire cosmos. My consciousness is non-
different from the universal consciousness; Atman = Brahman.

Atman = Brahman: Cosmos as Ink Stain

Despite the terribly sublime beauty of this view, we likely find ourselves skeptical. Why
should my inmost Self be the same as the first principle of existence? Surely I seem to be
basically separate from the rest of the cosmos? The Advaita literature abounds in arguments,
examples, and metaphors of all kinds, only a few of which we will be able to look at here. The
present writer has found though that one of the best metaphors for introducing modern thinkers
to Advaita doctrine is one presented by Alan Watts, who spent his life lecturing on Indian
philosophies to Westerners. Watts used a unique metaphor to explain Advaita philosophy
compellingly in terms of that preferred creation story of modern scientifically-minded people,
the Big Bang:

Imagine you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that
ink spread. In the middle it is dense, but as it gets out to the edge, the little
droplets get finer and finer, and make more complicated patterns. So in the same
way, we posit that there was a ‘big bang’ at the beginning of things and it spread. .
. . If this is true, then we human beings are some of the complicated little patterns
way out on the edges of it . . . Very interesting. But [which is why we have
difficulty internalizing the Advaita view] we define ourselves as being only those
little patterns. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself
as one very complicated little curlicue way out on the edge of that explosion.

We might, though, try for a different definition. What if we suggested that you are
not something that’s a result of the big bang, but that you are still the big bang in
process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as
whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as—
Mr. So-and-so, Mrs. So-and-so—I see every one of you as the primordial energy
of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I’m that too. But
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we’ve learned to define ourselves as separate from it. (from “The Nature of
Consciousness,” Disc 1; edited from audio lecture; emphases added).

Let us first note one possible objection: orthodox Advaitins might argue against identifying
Brahman with the primordial energy of the big bang – for perhaps as Brahman is eternal it must
underlie even the energy of the big bang, which is posited as taking place at a particular point in
time. This need not concern us excessively however: first, we must remember that Watts’s
example is not a literal explanation of Brahman but a metaphor; secondly, we might reflect that it
is in any case nearly impossible to speak of Brahman except indirectly – this is because, being
infinite, any words used to describe it will be inadequate. Brahman is thus often characterized by
the formula ‘neti, neti’ (‘not this, not that’): sometimes we cannot describe what Brahman is but
more easily what it is not. While Brahman may not be only the primordial energy of the big
bang, thinking of it in this way may allow us to begin to better conceptualize Brahman ourselves.

Watts’s metaphor suggests one way in which it can it make sense to see ourselves as one
with the primordial energy of the universe. If we re-conceptualize existence as something
‘happening,’ rather then as divided into discrete causes and effects, we can then see ourselves as
a seamless expression of this happening rather than as a separate result of innumerable preceding
causes. When I see myself as a mere ‘result’ of the universe’s energy, I posit myself as separate
from this energy; if I were to see myself as part of this as a ‘process,’ I could then identify with
being an aspect of this energy as a whole. Watts suggests that it is because we have chosen to
identify ourselves as merely what is “contained inside our own skin” (our bodies) – that we fail
to see ourselves as ineluctably connected with the entire energy of the cosmos.

Sensible Phenomena

This example may also lead us to reflect on the seeming interdependence of all sensible
phenomena.3 Ecology teaches that it is impossible to properly understand ourselves without
understanding our relationship with all other life forms on this planet; through photosynthesis,
predation, and other processes, all earthly life is ineluctably interdependent. Likewise, our
planet’s life depends on the light of the sun; the sun depended for its creation on various
3
This discussion of sensible phenomena must also be taken as strictly metaphorical: Advaita emphasizes not the
non-duality of phenomena but more particularly of what underlies all phenomena – Brahman. The sensible world is
often seen as more or less unreal. This is an oversimplification, however: as Ramana has stated, for Advaita the
world is real “when experienced as the Self” and illusory “when seen apart from the Self” (cf. Osborne 96).
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elements being brought together by the spinning galaxy; and likely so on. It might begin to seem
as though in our universe no individual entity can exist as it does without the presence of
innumerable other entities existing as they do. Reflecting on this may lead us to wonder whether
the conceptual boundaries we employ to separate entities from one another might be more or less
arbitrary: I define myself as being different from you; but then this difference I posit between us
is likewise a part of me. So I could not exist as I do without knowing that you exist as you do;
even our seeming individualities then mutually depend on one another.

The ‘Wisdom of Babes’: Advaita and Infant Psychology

Watts declared above that “we’ve learned to define ourselves as separate from [the
primordial energy of the universe].” This suggests (quite differently from our usual view) that
awareness that we are brahman is actually a more natural way of our relating to the world; that it
is our own mental constructions, or learned images of ourselves, that produce our separated
feeling. This notion that unified awareness is primary and that the separated feeling is a result of
learned constructions may draw some support from developmental psychology. As Paediatrician
Daniel Stern relates, at birth and in the early months of life, infants generally make little to no
distinction between ‘themselves’ and ‘the world’ (Stern 11). It is largely through the process of
socialization that a baby learns to associate herself with her own body and to disassociate herself
with other aspects of her awareness – she then sees the latter as being ‘outside,’ or ‘not-me.’
Stern tries to help us understand the perception of babies: “pretend that weather is the only
medium . . . chairs, walls, light, and people all make up a weatherscape” (these are not seen as
separate discrete objects, but as a “prevailing mood or force” akin to a certain “weather” (Stern
11)). To fully understand how an infant perceives, we must also

pretend that there is no you to stand outside the weather and watch it happen. You
are part of the weatherscape. . . . the distinction between inside and outside is still
vague: both may seem to be a part of a single continuous space. (Stern 11)

Infants seem to experience a more ‘unitive’ awareness; Advaita would thus see them as being
naturally closer to ‘atman=brahman’ realization. As suggested by Watts’s metaphor, it may
indeed be largely through a learned mode of relating to the world that original feelings of unity
are broken into personalized individuality. We might thus better understand why S.
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Radhakrishnan asserts, in his foreword to Osborne’s Ramana biography, that “We must become
as little children before we can enter into the realm of truth”; “It is said that the wisdom of babes
is greater than that of scholars . . . The child is much nearer the vision of the Self” (xii).

Ramana and Advaita: Sat-Chit-Ananda

Ramana’s own teaching is indeed in line with Advaita doctrine of the non-duality
between atman and brahman. Continuing the above conversation with his devotee (pp. 1-2
above), Pillai asks, “What is the nature of that Consciousness [which arises through enquiry]?”;
Ramana replies:

It is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) in which there is not even the

slightest trace of the I thought. This is also called Atma (Self). That is the only
thing that is. . . . God, ego, and world are really Sivaswarupa (the Form of Siva)
or Atmaswarupa (the form of the Atman). (Osborne 101-102).

Ramana teaches that all apparently external phenomena are really no more than Atmaswarupa.
The inmost Self is identical with what appear to be God and the world.

Ramana also describes the awareness of basic consciousness as “Sat-Chit-Ananda,” or

“Being-Consciousness-Bliss.” We can better understand this from a bit of reflection on our
discussion so far. The first two terms are simple: the Self is Being because it is the basis of all
awareness and is all that is; it is free from egoic and material identification and so is pure
Consciousness, or chit. It is Bliss for a few reasons: first, this awareness is free from thoughts of
future or past, from all worldly worries or fears; in dwelling in the Self, one dwells entirely in the
present moment, without one’s mind jumping into past memories or future projections. Also,
anxiety is said to dissipate when one realizes this Self and thus ceases to consider the world and
oneself as separate entities, because in viewing these all as appearances of the Self, one can take
them a bit less seriously; one can then live life if one desires simply as ‘lila,’ or ‘play.’ A person
with this awareness might begin to put aside some of her compulsive behaviours and obsessions
with ego-driven achievements: it begins to seem a bit silly to her to be forever striving to get
ahead, to make a name for herself, and to be more successful than her neighbours. The moment
one suddenly identifies with all existence, there no longer seems to be a need to get anything: for
one realizes that one has everything – or rather is everything – already.
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Advaita often helps illustrate this with the image of waves and water: the fundamental
substance of our being is water, which is the same in everyone else and throughout the entire
ocean, but we have a tendency to identify ourselves as only our individual wave. Thus, so long as
a person identifies as merely a wave, he has anxiety – ‘I am a small wave’; ‘I would like to be a
bigger wave’; ‘a more beautiful one’; and particularly, ‘I will soon splash onto the shore, where I
shall die!’ The moment however that one views oneself ultimately as water – which is the same
throughout the ocean – and ceases to identify with his individual wave but instead with the
fathomless deep, one can then drop anxiety and instead enjoy simple oceanic consciousness. To
have an inkling of this concept may be to bring one’s mind some ease; to live in constant
awareness of it may to be dwell permanently in ananda, bliss.

Ramana’s Prescribed Method to Self-Realization: ‘Who Am I?’

We have seen that Ramana himself realized the Self through a sudden near-death
experience. As it seems unlikely that he could direct his visitors and disciples to undergo a
similar experience themselves – his was spontaneous and unsought – we may wonder what
method he recommended for realizing the Self. His principal prescribed method was a very
simple one called vichara (‘enquiry’). To devotee Pillai’s question “How is salvation to be
attained?,” Ramana replied, “By incessant enquiry ‘Who am I?’ you will know yourself and
thereby attain salvation” (Osborne 101). This enquiry would proceed in the way elucidated (see
page 2): by noticing that one is not the body, nor the senses, nor the objects of the senses, nor the
breath, nor the mind, nor even the deep sleep state. The only thing that then remains is the pure
Self, the ‘witness’ of all these: the Self is aware of all of these states, but is not identified with
any one of them.

Ramana taught that “Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to
realize the unconditioned absolute Being that you really are” (Maharshi’s Gospel II; Osborne
185). He also emphasized that for the practice to be ultimately effective, it had to be practiced
constantly until it became habitual:

Never yield room in your mind for [doubts], but dive into the Self with firm
resolve. If the mind is constantly directed to the Self by this enquiry it is
eventually dissolved and transformed into the Self. When you feel any doubt do
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not try to elucidate it but to know who it is to whom the doubt occurs. (Osborne
103)

Sustained practice is key; whenever any thought, doubt, or perception occurs, one should
remember always to ask to whom (this thought, doubt, perception) occurs. The mind by its nature
is always drawn to objects, wishing to investigate the external world in all its seductive and
intriguing multiplicity. Ramana taught that the only way to reduce this fascination with external
phenomena was through unceasing enquiry: “Self-enquiry continues to be necessary until the
Self is realized. What is required is continuous and uninterrupted remembrance of the Self” (103-
104). Therefore, as Osborne notes, it was “not only as a technique of meditation that [Ramana]
prescribed Self-enquiry but as a technique of living also” (191).

You Are Always of the Nature of Bliss!

Finally, despite this prescribed method for realizing the Self which we all really are,
Ramana and Advaita add a surprising twist. As Ramana dramatizes a conversation in his Vichara
Mani Malai:

Disciple: Swami, what are the means of putting an end to the miseries of samsara
like birth and death and of attaining supreme bliss?

Guru: O Disciple! What a delusion! You are always of the nature of bliss. There is
not the least trace of samsara in you. Therefore do not take upon yourself the
miseries of birth, etc. You are the conscious Brahman which is free from birth and
death. (Vichara Mani Malai 8)

This is Advaita (‘non-dualism’) taken to the utmost: there is ultimately no difference between
liberation and the endless cycles of birth, death, and suffering (samsara). Though we may not
know it, we are always of the nature of bliss.4

Now though, we may begin to wonder: what the point is of Self-enquiry, or for that
matter of any other method for self-realization? To what end are these methods if we are already
of the nature of bliss? The Disciple has a similar concern:

4
Here Advaita philosophy intriguingly anticipates the posit of Nagarjuna and some Mahayana Buddhist schools that
“Samsara is Nirvana, Nirvana is Samsara” (see, e.g., Peter Harvey 125 ff.).
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If I am (already) of the nature of bliss how is it possible for me to attain the bliss
which is always attained and similarly to get rid of the misery which never
existed? (8).

If we are already of the nature of bliss, how then can we attain this bliss? For surely most of us
do not feel like we are in eternal bliss; we may be uncomfortable, depressed, or at least a little
bored. The Guru proceeds to clarify the matter however:

[Attaining this bliss] is possible just as one can seek and find a bracelet which was
on one’s arm all the time but which one had forgotten about, and on finding it
look upon it as a new acquisition. . . . as in the case of the serpent which, at no
time present in the rope, was mistaken for one, but which seemed to be there and
seems to disappear when one discovers that it is only a piece of rope (8-9).

We need not actually realize the Self to be protected from injuries suffered at the hands of the
world – for the world actually can not harm us. Life was never dangerous: though we took it to
be vicious as a snake, it was harmless as a rope. This is because whether we knew it or not we
have always been the eternal deathless self. We believe we have lost our bracelet (our Self) but
really it has been on our arm the whole time (we have always been brahman). Even in our very
identification as a lone curlicue, we were expressing an aspect of our own particular nature as
part of the universe’s primordial energy: just as it is natural for us to be brahman, it may be
natural for us in particular not to realize this. We may reflect also that though they know it not,
animals, plants, and insects are said to be still brahman: their definitions of themselves (if they
have such things) do not change reality. Advaita often compares phenomenal existence to a
dream (cf. Sharma 80), and holds that realizing the atman is to wake up to reality; but even if we
do not wake up, we remain brahman.

Advaita thus finally teaches that even our own apparently unattractive individual self –
perhaps riddled with impertinent griefs and permeated by the personal ego – is actually (though
we knew it not) in its own way an expression of the boundless cosmos. Precisely in being our
own uniquely muddled and imperfect selves, we remain an expression of the incomprehensible
vastness, beauty, and bliss of the eternal energy underlying the universe. A wave may be
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ultimately water, but for a short time it is also a wave, which is a transient though also beautiful
feature of the ocean.

Edification

We hope these discussions may have helped us begin to understand what has made
Advaita Vedanta so singularly edifying for so many thinkers. Advaita presents us with a series of
uplifting affirmations: first, it tells us that our true self is actually not the anxiety-ridden
personality, nor the selfish ego, nor the impermanent and imperfect body; rather it is a pure and
eternal consciousness ‘behind’ all of these. Further, it asserts that this Self is not only not
personal but is also not individual – that we are ultimately non-different from the primordial
energy of the universe: though we took ourselves each to be separate and transient waves, we all
are the water of the ocean. Advaitic sage Ramana Maharshi also suggests a practice – ‘Self-
enquiry’ – through which we can seek this Self: at the least this may give our minds a holiday
from constant discursive thought; at most it may allow us to realize total bliss. Finally, Advaita
asserts however that even if we do not realize this Self, we are ineluctably of the nature of eternal
bliss – we remain boundless and blissful brahman whether we know it or not. Thus from this
short survey we seem to have found a wealth of attributes which render Advaita so uplifting. So
following Schopenhauer, we might now be inclined to read a verse of the Upanishads every
evening; or following Ramana we might take up constant Self-enquiry. Or we might do neither
of these, and still need not fear, knowing that we remain utterly perfect and of the nature of bliss.

Appendix
 15

Advaita Vedanta and Western Psychology: Sigmund Freud and the ‘Oceanic Feeling’

Though Advaita Vedanta has been so attractive to some Western intellectuals, it is still firmly
out of the mainstream of Western thought. Contemporary psychology would likely take a rather dim
view of the kind of awakening experience Ramana Maharshi had as a boy. It is unclear how precisely
a practising Western psychologist would diagnose such an experience, but it seems almost certain
that he would view it as somehow pathological.

We may take as an early example, or perhaps even a root of this attitude, the opinion of the
founder of contemporary Western psychology, Sigmund Freud, on an “oceanic feeling” described to
him by an anonymous friend in his Civilization and its Discontents (the friend is now known to have
been the writer and mystic Romain Rolland). Freud relates Rolland’s description of this feeling he
(Rolland) frequently experienced: it was as “a sense of ‘eternity,’ a feeling of something limitless,
unbounded – as it were ‘oceanic’” (11); this of course suggests an experience akin to Advaitic Self-
realization, realizing identity with eternal and limitless brahman. Moreover, for Rolland this feeling
was a “purely subjective fact, not an article of faith” (11); just as for instance Ramana’s experience
was subjective, and not a product of external faith. 5 The feeling suggested the consciousness of
“being indissolubly bound up with and belonging to the whole of the world” (11); very much the
feeling that Advaita wishes to bring about.

Rolland saw this consciousness as “the source of the religious energy which is seized upon
by the various Churches and religious systems,” and thought that “one may rightly call oneself
religious on the ground of this oceanic feeling alone” (11). Freud, however, was not enthusiastic:

the idea that a person should be informed of his connection with the world around
him through an immediate feeling that is used for this purpose from the beginning
sounds so bizarre, and fits so badly into the fabric of our psychology, that we are
justified in looking for a psychoanalytic – that is to say a genetic – derivation of such
a feeling. . . (12)

He rejected seeing the oceanic feeling as the source of religious energy, preferring to posit religious
“needs” as having derived from “the infant’s helplessness and the longing for the father” (19). He
suggested that the oceanic feeling was merely a kind of “infantile regression,” a return to more
5
Advaita when speaking of Self-realization places great emphasis on personal experience, denoted by the Sanskrit
term ‘anubhava’: “[ultimately] the Vedanta acknowledges only one criterion of truth, viz. anubhava” (Belvalkar
18).
 16

infantile perception precipitated by a person’s terror of the dangers posed to him by the external
world (12-19). While we have seen that there is much sense in comparing oceanic consciousness to
infant perception (pp. 9-10), the general tenor of Freud’s analysis is to view this consciousness as
firmly pathological. Freud misses the opportunity to see the positive potential this feeling may have
for individual transformation as we have suggested above.

What Ramana’s devotees characterize as his awakening would be more likely characterized
by Freud (and much of today’s Western psychology based on his work) as the onset of some type of
‘mental disorder.’ Indeed, Ramana’s own family was not particularly happy with him in the weeks
immediately following his slip into oceanic consciousness:

I would often sit alone, especially in a posture suitable for meditation, and become
absorbed in the Self, the Spirit, the force or current which constituted me. I would
continue in this despite the jeers of my elder brother who would sarcastically call me
‘sage’ or ‘yogi’ and advise me to retire into the jungle like the ancient Rishis. (from
Osborne 14-15)

Escaping and retiring from worldly life – not to the jungle but to the mountain Arunachala – was
ultimately what Ramana would do;6 had he been born in the West, this secret escape to live “like the
Rishis” would likely have been a path unavailable to him. Mainstream psychology today tends to
share with Freud this skepticism towards anything savouring of the ‘mystical,’ usually interpreting
such conditions pathologically. We can only speculate as to the number of people in the West who
may have had experiences similar to Ramana’s, and far from having ashrams built around them may
instead have been placed in mental institutions.

Works Cited

6
We must note that Ramana did not view renunciation of home life as at all a necessary step for most people, and
generally discouraged devotees who were interested in renouncing. As he told one disciple, “renunciation does not
mean outer divestment of clothes and so on or abandonment of home. True renunciation is the renunciation of
desires, passions, and attachments. . . . one who truly renounces actually merges in the world and expands his love to
embrace the whole world. It would be more correct to describe the attitude of the devotee as universal love than as
abandoning home to don the ochre robe” (from Osborne 82-83). Ramana recognized that everyone’s path was
different depending on his or her karma accumulated from past lives, and while renunciation might have been the
best step for him, it was not necessarily so for others (cf. Osborne 82-87).
 17

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