Non-Dual Sages of HINDUISM

All of the world's wisdom traditions have produced, and do produce the condition of living consciously from inherent fulfilled awareness, aka enlightenment.

However, if you're not familiar with non-dual teachings, aka advaita ("non-dual" in Sanskrit), it might be a bit difficult to discern "who's who".

And so, I'm going to be providing a series of posts with links to the great non-dual sages from each wisdom tradition.

In this post, I'm providing links to the non-dual sages of India/Hinduism.

These are the sages, gurus and teachers you can trust to (literally) tell it like it is; no dogma, no doctrine ... just esoteric symbolism (if any), and/or straightforward statements, to guide you to the experiencing of how consciousness actually operates, and thereby, to be able to experience enlightenment in your own life.

Adi Shankaracharya
India, 8th Century
Founding guru of Advaita Vedanta


Abhinavagupta
Kashmir, 10th Century
Leading guru of non-dual Trika Shaivism


Ramana Maharshi
Arunachala, 20th Century
Non-dual sage


Nisargadatta Maharaj
Maharashtra, 20th Century
Non-Dual Sage, best known for the book I AM THAT


Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Tamil Nadu, 21st Century
Non-Dual Paramahamsa

Please Note: if you are not at all familiar with the essence of Hinduism and advaitic philosophy, you may want to start with Paramahamsa Nithyananda, Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Abhinavagupta In The News!

Here's a comment (below) I made to a post by Matt Browner Hamlin on Huffingtonpost, discussing the "fundamentalist atheism" of author Christopher Hitchens.

That post (linked above) points out that certain spiritual systems, such as the non-dual Kashmir Shaivism of Abhinavagupta, are every bit as scientific or more so than so-called "modern science".

I wholeheartedly concur, per my comment below.

**

Excellent article. Kudos on the mention of Kashmir Shaivism and Abhinavagupta. There is actually no conflict between science and religion; there is only misunderstanding between mistaken understanding of science and mistaken understanding of religion. Fundamentalist scientists are as blinded by their prejudices as fundamentalists of the religious persuasion are by theirs. Scientists claim to be interested only in reality … but so do religious adherents. However, as soon as a fundamentalist of any variety runs up against information their prejudices won’t allow them to consider … their prejudice wins by default, and the blindness remains. As you likely know, Kashmir Shaivism is much more a template than a specific system; any aspect of the consciousness-reality spectrum fits neatly within it. And, as with all other yogic/tantric disciplines, Kashmir Shaivism has a basis for verification that even science can’t match: the replicable experiencing of anyone who cares to test its premises for themselves. Good job; thank you for this post … I never expected to see Abhinavagupta make the news!

Christian Shaivism / Christian Advaita

One of the aspects of inter-religious dialog and understanding which makes communication between religions difficult, is that the teachings of religion or philosophy can seem to say that reality is dualistic (i.e. God is God, and you are not), while spiritual experiences, especially the deepest ones, are experiences of the formless non-dual reality underlying the distinctions of day to day life and conceptual mind.

And so, Advaitic schools within Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism (Kabbalah), Islam (Sufism), or any other "ism" can seem to be teaching something inherently and radically different than "mainstream Christianity" (or even the "mainstreams" of those religions, as well) teaches -- which, in the minds of many Christians, would therefore mean that these systems, at best, have nothing to offer Christians -- and at worst, could be harmful to Christian faith.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Literally.

Paying serious attention to this could be useful, because ... well .... knowing the truth *is* what makes you free.

Are you free?

If so, you're knowing you're free, right now.

If there's any doubt ... this post may be very, very important for you, in terms of ... well, everything that can possibly matter in your life.

No kidding.

And, yes, of course --- I could hypothetically be: lying, delusional, influenced by dark forces, messing with you, simply yet actually wrong, etc. etc. etc.

How to know whether I am (any of those things listed above) or not?

Find out.

Know the truth; be free.

Drop all ideas -- especially all Christian ideas (and before you respond, please just read/listen ... I'm here to help enhance faith/relationship/knowing truth .... not to diminish or challenge or debate).

And I'm most certainly not "picking on" or singling out Christianity in any way -- the reason for the focus in the rather amazing, revolutionary article, linked at the bottom of this post.

I'm not saying to discard all ideas or beliefs -- I'm just saying to drop preconceptions, for now. It's not ideas that will save you -- it's knowing.

And - cutting to the chase, so to speak - there's a parish priest in Australia, by the name of Rev. Dr. John R. Dupuche who has noticed some beautifully deep, and deeply beautiful correspondences between the teachings of the philosophy of non-dual Kashmir Shaivism, and Christianity - correspondences which he finds so meaningful, that he says he is hoping to facilitate the start of a Christian Shaivism (Shiva is not actually different from Christ; Shiva is simply a different term for Christ).

How deeply has Father Dupuche gone, in order to develop his views?

He's been a parish priest for quite some time, he has written several books on related matters -- and, he has his Ph.D. ... in Sanskrit.

He has written a brief (10 page) paper outlining his views on Christian Shaivism // Christian Advaita; I highly recommend it.

NOTE: The link below opens the PDF article by Rev. Dr. John R. Dupuche, directly.

Renewing Christian Anthropology In Terms of Kashmir Shaivism

http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_4/dupuche.pdf