Dvaita Vs Advaita

With reference to excerpts from sacred texts of Yogvashishtam (Maharamayana)

Question of king Rama : O Mahatma, Brahman is free of sorrow. But this world is full of sorrow. Brahman is non-dual. But the world displays multiplicity. Ans so your words are not clear. Please explain this to me.

Rama's Surprise : O sage, this falsehood and ignorance are detestably lowly. It is unreal and yet it as blinded this world ! Surprising !

Discussion: When we look around us, we see the world to be multifaceted. Not just the world, even people around us including ourselves are multifaceted. With all its varied colors, the world appears to be having innumerable flavors to it. We ourselves come across all sort of incidents. Real bother murdering his own brother for property or a friend who puts his friendship ahead of his own personal interest. Revelations of all sorts abuses rampant in society or news of a family praying together for their bread-winner who is settled in another nation. The world has so many flavors to it. There is gloomy darkness which surrounds us and so is there the sunny brightness that we all cherish. If we closely try to observe, the bipolar nature of world is evident to all of us. It seems the world is constituted by two poles. ie: any object / person / activity / practice cannot be termed as good or bad. There can't be a clear demarcation. We don't normally come across a person who is 100% pure and saatvik in his conduct. Vice-versa is also true. This bi-polar or Dvaita nature has been highlighted in many cultures. For eg: the Chinese culture has a well developed concept of Yin and Yang. The term Yin and Yang are viewed with many varied meanings. Yin can refer to the feminine aspects and Yan can refer to the masculine aspects of the world. But the original concept of yin and yang came from the observation of nature and the environment. Yin originally referred to the the shady side of a mountain slope while Yang referred to the sunny side. Later this thinking was used in understanding other occurrences, which occurred in pairs and had complementary and opposing nature. For eg: sky & earth, day & night, water & fire, active & passive, male & female, etc. Yang is associated with energetic qualities. Yin, on the other hand, is associated with the physical form of an object. Here are a few comparisons :

Yin	Yang
Dark	Bright
Cold	Hot
Rest	Movement
Inward	Outward
Inhibitory	Excitatory

Not only that the world can be viewed as bi-polar, It is not possible to experience a single / monopole ie: we don't encounter a person who is only bright and sunny in all aspects of his character and does not have any darker or grey shades associated with him. Vice-versa is also true. Not only just persons, we also don't encounter any object which is absolutely bright or dark ( we can always find a brighter object than a bright object). Neither do we encounter a female who does not posses even slightest of the masculine traits or a man who has absolutely zero feminine characteristics. Thus we observe that not only the world is bi=polar, but also there are two sides to a coin. We cannot categorize a person as being Black (dark) or White (bright). We are all shades of grey. Now that we have reached a stage where we are able to appreciate the bi-polar or dual nature of world. Now we ponder how can all these observations be possibly accommodated by Advaita vedanta? First let us get some basic understanding about advaita vedanta. Advaita literally means 'non-dual' and it is one of the most influential ideas of sanatan dharam ( Hindu philosophy ). In the conversation between guru Vashishta and king Rama, Vashishatha also tries to highlight that although it might appear otherwise, but the concept of monoism (advaita ) holds true. If we try to give this a thought, the ideas of dualism and monoism do seem to be contradictory. If Brahman is non-dual and the world as a whole itself is a manifestation of Brahman in various forms, how is it that the world displays multiplicity? Even king Rama had a similar question in his mind and demanded further clearance from hi guru. The concept of advaita vedanta was consolidated in Hindu philosophy by adi shankara. Advaita (noan-dualism) essentially refers to the identity of the self ( Aatman ) and brahman. Advaita vedanta says that the only 'truth' and non-transient is brahman and it alone 'exists'. Thus transient entities do not have an absolute existence, much as the ocean's waves have no existence in separation from the ocean. Advaita vedanta states that Brahman is the only truth. The spatio-temporal world is an illusion and there is ultimately no difference between brahman and individual self. The Hamsa ( 'bar - headed goose') is an important motif in advaita vadanta. Its symbolic meanings are as follows :

1. Upon verbally repeating Hamsa, it becomes soham. ( meaning 'I am that.')

2. Even as hamsa lives in water, its feathers are not sullied by it. A liberated advaitin lives in this world full of maya but is untouched by its illusion.

3. A monk of the Dashanami order is called a Pramhamsa.

If we try to analyse the ideas of dualism and non-dualism, they seem to be counter-intuitive with respect to each other. But we get some hints as to how do we address this problem and these hints come from the texts of Yogavashishtam. According to the utpatti prakarna, the world is real as brahman - consciousness and unreal as mental consciousness. Moreover, our mind is conscient and inconscient at the same time. Due to this duality, the whole world is caused. This also provides us with a slight hint about how we should conduct ourselves in this world which is real and unreal at the same time. We can't live in the world without duality. But 'sticking' with duality will not let us be aware of the Nitya which is brahman. This can be summarized as being a Dvaita when we are dealing with the world and an Advaita in our our own mind. This kind of explanation was one of the primary reasons for king Rama's surprise. It is because most of us treat everything with the notion of dualism and forget that in its true form everything is just a different manifestation of the brahman itself. It is due to our not being aware about the brahman that we get sucked into the duality of the world. That is why king Rama is surprised at this falsehood and ignorance about the true nature of world. Our ignorance about the advaita vedanta and brahman is what has blinded us.

After all this discussion, although we can conclude that the advaita vedanta and the duality philosophy can actually accommodate each other. But What led to the manifestation of advaita brahman into form of a world that, in all senses and experiences, appears to follow dualism ? It is amazing how simple and trivial its explanation can be. Lets try to take an analogy.

The principle of duality is fundamental to physics. For eg: radiations ( cosmic rays, light rays, X-rays, etc) posses both wave and particle nature. Similarly materials ( electrons, protons, etc) also posses this wave-particle duality. Thus we can draw a corollary between Yin-Yang and wave-particle. These do not exist as a monopole but everything has an inherent wave-particle duality. Just like everything has attributes of Yin & Yang. But Brahaman itself does not have any attributes. Everything is just a manifestation of Brahaman in various forms. Where does this possibly fir into our analogy? If we look at the following illustration :

Matter is a form of energy. E = MC²

Radiation is also a form of energy. E = hv

So we observe that Energy is visible to us in various forms. Energy manifests itself in various forms. Matter as well as radiation has inherent duality of wave and particle. But Energy is free from any such duality. ie: Energy is Advaita. Similarly we can argue that Brahaman in its absolute unmanifested form os advaita. The issue of duality rises only because of Brahaman's manifestation in form of Yin & Yang. Thus we can say that every object / being / quality is only a manifestation of Brahaman. This necessarily means that although the 6 virtues शम, दम, उपरति, तितिक्ष, श्रद्ध, समाधान are very much part of Brahaman. But also deadly sins including काम, क्रोध, लोभ, मोह, मद, मत्सर, अहंकार, आलस्य etc. are equally part of Brahaman. Because ultimately everything is Brahaman. There exists nothing which is not brahman. That is why although it is absolutely necessary of being aware about Brahaman being the only truth / नित्य, it is equally important to know the way of our conduct. Because it is clear from my illustration that although in its absolute form everything is Brahman, but due to the maniestation of Brahman in the form which we experience as the world, the dual nature is equally valid. Hence the need to know how to conduct ourselves in this transient world.

Sources :

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara
• http://www.shen-nong.com/eng/principles/whatyinyang.html