Advaita Vedanta

 

Most yoga practices were originally devised to open the yogi’s awareness to the fact that, in reality, we are all one Pure Consciousness. But what does this really mean? How come the experience of our senses seems so convincingly to inform us that we are individual, separate entities? And how can we learn to undo this false sense of separation?

 

This five week course gives an introduction to the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, or non-dualism. The programme brings together teachings from various scriptures including the Upanishads and Viveka Chudamani (the Jewel of Discrimination) and combines them with exercises and meditations that bring these teachings to life. 

Week 1: Advaita Vedanta and the path of Self-Inquiry. Exploring the undivided (non-dual) nature of your essence, your eternal Self—described in scriptures as Sat Chit Ananda, meaning Pure Existence, Pure Consciousness, Pure Bliss. Why do we experience being separate individual entities if we are ultimately the same Self? 

Week 2: The mental attitudes and practices recommended for those who want to come to know their eternal Self. These include viveka (discriminating between the eternal Self and the temporary ‘not-Self’), vairagya (dispassion towards things that lead you away from your eternal Self) and the Shatt Sampatti (the six virtues). 

Week 3: Maya and the three guna. How the free, expanded Beingness gets ‘caught’ by Maya in the form of gunas, how we experience the gunas in our lives and how we are ultimately free of them. 

Week 4: The five kosha. How the five kosha create our limited human experience and how investigating each of them in turn can enable us to recognise the pure, Witness Consciousness that observes all the kosha but is eternal and free. 

Week 5: Ego and the four states of consciousness. Investigating what our ahankara or ego really is, and how the three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming and deep sleep) can reveal the underlying Pure Consciousness which these states are all made of. What is the Fourth State of Consciousness? The importance of practice.