"The world is filled with attachments and aversions and is like a dream; It appears to be real as long as one is ignorant but becomes unreal when one is awake."
Sri Sankara, also known as Sankaracharya, was a Hindu Avatar born in approximately 788 AD to a Brahmin family in South India. He was so precocious that by the age of 16 He had completed all His writings. At the age of ten he had memorized most of the Hindu scriptures.
His parents had been praying for a child for a long time before Sri Sankara’s birth, when one night in a dream Sri Sankara’s father, Sivaguru, heard the Lord speaking to him. "Hail devotee! I am deeply moved by thy prayers and penances, choose now, would you have a hundred sons devoid of brains and character who would live long or only one son who would live a shortened life?" Upon making their request they heard an inner voice that said, "I myself shall be born as your son."
A local astrologer doing the prodigies chart suggested that they name him Sankara, which means "the giver of auspiciousness to all living things".
By the time the boy was three He was the master of many languages, most specifically Sanskrit. By the age of five He had mastered most arts and sciences other than the Veda. At the age of five His father passed away. Sankara was spiritually initiated at this time and began His study and mastery of the four Vedas, and other religious texts. Tradition has it that by the age of eight He had studied the Veda and mastered all the principle branches of knowledge with effortless ease. Through a divine dispensation of His mother agreeing to allow Sankara to follow the path of a sanyasin (renunciate), Sankara was allowed to live on Earth to the age of 32.
It was at eight years old that He left home to search for His guru. His guru was the well known sage and Self realized being, Govinda Bhagavatpada.
At one point at this early age, the Lord spoke to Sankara and said, "Sankara, Thou art Myself manifest amongst men that Thou mayst preach to them the doctrines of the Brahman set out in the Vedanta Sutras of Vyasa. (Vyasa wrote the Bhagavad Gita and was a past life of the Buddha.) Do write the Bhyasya of the Sutras and instruct worthy men in the wisdom of Vedanta. Nay, you shall be the supreme world teacher, establishing the Vedanta doctrine in the world."
Sankara, still only being eight years old, set out on a commentary of the Vedanta Sutras of Vyasa, which is the true doctrine of the Upanishads which are the wisdom teachings of the Vedas (the Bible of the Eastern world). Sankara’s mission was to stamp out the seventy two misguided religions of the Kali-Yuga age and reestablish the six Vedic religions for the world’s well being.
Sri Sankara achieved great spiritual and mystical heights and surpassed all the saints and scholars of His time in His understanding of the nature of God, man and the universe.
He traveled across the vast subcontinent four times spreading His gospel and teachings. He started four principle monasteries at the four cardinal points of India. He organized the great number of wandering monks in India into ten well-knit orders. He died at the age of 32 as prophesied in the Himalayas.
Sri Sankara’s philosophy and gospel was based on the belief that the purpose of life and worship was to, by constant struggle become perfect, to become divine, to reach God and be God on Earth. The sole reality which existed was Brahman. Brahman is absolute existence, absolute knowledge and absolute bliss. This is referred to as "Sat, Chit, Ananda".
God was seen as impersonal, and having no attributes which come and go. God is permanent infinite essence. He is completely changeless without any unfilled desires. It is impossible to grasp God (Brahman) with the finite mind. The soul of man (Atman), is part of Brahman.
The physical universe is seen as maya or illusion. It is this maya that caused the illusion of individuality. It was this maya and ignorance that makes one feel that they are separate from Brahman. This ignorance causes man to project and superimpose his ego (separate individuality and division) onto reality.
Sankara saw man as having three states of consciousness. Waking, dreaming and dreamless.
| State | Coat | Sheath |
|---|---|---|
| Waking state | Physical body | Sheath of food |
| Dream state | Subtle body | Sheath of vital airs, the Mind, and self-consciousness |
| Dreamless deep- sleep state | Causal body | Sheath of bliss |
The appearance of the world of many separate forms and objects is illusion. The underlying reality of all the seeming diversity is Brahman. Brahman was achieved through renunciation, discrimination, and self control which lead to true devotion, which leads to a transcendental consciousness.
The purpose of life is moksha or liberation. This was achieved through incarnation into a physical body. Brahman was seen as all bliss and goodness, and the only reality behind all the activity of the world. The world was seen as containing both good and evil, however, the absolute reality of Brahman was beyond good and evil, pleasure and pain, success and failure.
In other words, the absolute reality was beyond duality. The only true statement would be, "I am Brahman", or "I am God". Sankara, Himself, practiced strict spiritual disciplines and completely renounced worldly pleasures. The goal of life was to overcome this maya and ignorance and hence realize the Atman and Brahman.
To achieve this one must master the five senses, the mind, destroy the ego (negative ego), master the emotions, the body, material desire. When the self merges with Brahman the devotee was seen as going into a trance called "nirvikalpa samadhi", which is the state of non-duality.
Quotes of Sri Sankara
Sankara formulated a complete system of philosophy and theology which regenerated India during the time He lived. The following are some quotes from His writings:
"Just as a piece of rope if imagined to be a snake and an oyster to be a piece of silver, so is the Atman (soul) determined to be the physical body by an ignorant person." "Atman (Eternal Self) is verily one and without parts, whereas the body consists of many parts and yet the people see these as one. What else can be called ignorance but this?"
"Action cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with ignorance. Knowledge alone destroys ignorance, as light destroys darkness."
"The impression of "I am Brahman" created by uninterrupted reflection, destroys ignorance and its distractions, as medicine destroys disease."
"All beings are, by nature, pure consciousness itself. It is due to ignorance that they appear to be different."
"Faith, devotion, and the yoga of meditation. These are mentioned by the Vedas as the immediate factors of liberation in the case of a seeker; Whoever abides by these, gets liberation from the bondage of the body, which is the conjuring of ignorance."
"Lust at the sight of a young woman springs from ignorance and delusion. Reason points out inwardly time and again, that bodies are only the combination of flesh, blood and fat."
"Never boast of your wealth, friends, and youth. Time may steal away all these in the twinkling of an eye. Giving up attachment to this world which is full of illusion, try to realize Brahman soon and merge it it."
"The knowledge of one’s identity with the pure self, that negates the notion of the identity of the body and the self, sets a man free even against his will from the belief that he is a human being."
"The world, which is full of attachment, aversion and the like, is like a dream. It appears to be real as long as one is ignorant." With the dawning of knowledge, the world becomes unreal."
"The yogi endowed with complete enlightenment, sees through the eye of knowledge the entire universe in his own and regards everything as the Self and nothing else."
"The right knowledge, the subject of Vedanta, produces the conviction that the self is Brahman. One becomes perfectly free from the bondage of this transmigratory existence when one achieves it."
"He is a knower of the Self to whom the ideas of me and mine have become quite obsolete."
"The intense desires for the realization of the Atman after renouncing all other desires, is alone the means for the attainment of the Atman."
"Among things conducive to liberation, devotion alone holds the supreme place. The seeking after one’s real nature is designated as devotion."
"Everyone in all the three worlds strives for happiness and not at all for misery. The two sources of misery are the sense of "I-ness" in the body and the sense of "mine-ness" arising therefrom, in the objects of one’s own consciousness."
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