Journey Beyond: A Non-Dual Approach (Volume III)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Everyone is searching for everlasting happiness. Yet, none can find it by pursuit; at the same time, none can stop the pursuit. This seems to be the tragedy of human life-nay, the life of every being. Every pursuit is limited space-wise, time-wise and object-wise. Any pursuit that is limited cannot give everlasting happiness. Some promise eternal happiness after death if one follows their path. Yet, no one has returned to claim that they achieved it by following that path. One sage declares that 'truth is a pathless land. Vedanta ascertains that the truth is beyond the space-time-object-wise limitations, and you are that truth-tat tvam asi. The journey beyond space and time limitations is the central theme of the discussions in this text

Dr. K. Sadananda is a Material Scientist by profession. He worked at United States Naval Research Laboratory as Head of Deformation and Fracture, and has published extensively in Science; he has received many awards.

He retired in 2005 and now works as a private consultant in the United States for six months in a year. He was also a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

He is a disciple of Swami Chinmayananda, was a founding trustee of the Chinmaya Mission's Washington Regional Center as well as Shree Siva Vishnu Temple, Maryland, USA. He served as Secretary and Treasurer of SEVA, Inc., a philanthropic organization formed around 1980 by Chinmaya Mission, to fund projects in India and elsewhere. Currently, he is an Acharya or spiritual teacher of Chinmaya Mission and splits his time between the USA and India. Advaita Academy has been sponsoring many of his talks on Vedanta and has made them available on Youtube under the keywords Acharya Sadaji. He is also authored a book, Introduction to Vedanta, which is now available on Amazon.com in USA. He is married to Mrinalini Sadananda, who is a well-known Kuchipudi dancer and choreographer.

Journey Beyond: A Non-Dual Approach involves 'Discussions on Advaita Vedanta' covering ten years of discussions conducted in various internet groups up to 2004. The discussion groups mostly include the alt-Hindu, advaital, and advaitin groups. I have been involved in the last one as one of the founders and moderators of the group, Currently, there are more than 2400 members in the group spanning from various backgrounds, nationalities, and religions. Vedantic discussions are an accepted method of sharing knowledge among the peers as they help in resolving many doubts that arise in the minds of the seekers during their learning. The breadth of the discussions reflects the nature of the group, some are beginners, some with advanced knowledge of Vedanta, some are traditionalists, and some are not, some have faith in the scriptures while others have none, and many have pre-conceived notions about the subject while others are open to learning. The discussions are done not to prove one is right, and the other is wrong, but to establish what is right, based on Vedanta, logic, and experience, in that order. As the new members join the discussion groups, the same old doubts are posed again and again with varying twists, but all are answered as though they were new. Therefore, one encounters some repetition which cannot be avoided in these group discussions. Many of the slokas are repeated in support of the concepts presented. Slokas from the scriptures are provided to show the a) scriptural validity for the answers provided and b) for the questionnaire to look for further information about the topic of discussion. For a beginner, the study will only reinforce the ideas; while for the advanced students it forms a means for contemplation or nidhidhyaasana. An attempt was made to reorganize the topics in terms of subjects, retaining the titles that the original posters have provided. There were some extensive discussions on some topics with some learned members of the group that unravel some of the complex aspects of Advaita Vedanta.

My motivation in responding to the questions and for active participation in the discussions is mostly to put in writing what I know, and in the process to crystallize my thoughts and the lessons that I learned from my teachers. The emphasis is in communicating what I understand from the scriptures rather than repeat what others have said. While studying the book, one may notice that the evolution of my thinking also changed with time. If I try to address now some of the issues that were raised, I may respond it differently. That is part of the evolution of the mind. As one matures, one sees life as simple and profound; its expression and one's attitude towards life changes with understanding. There is an increasing sense of gratitude for what has been given, instead of constant awareness of things that are lacking.

Coming from a science background, I grow up accepting what I am convinced is right, leaving the rest for further inquiry. My attention has been focused on the non-negatable truth that I am interested in. The emphasis has been more on understanding the concepts than in the rigor of following a particular tradition. I must say that I have met many knowledgeable people through these discussion groups, and learned a lot from them. Discussions and the associated depth of understanding also evolved during the period. While I chose to omit the names of many who were involved in the discussions other than identifying them as questionnaire 1, 2, etc., to protect their identity, I have retained occasionally the names of few close friends whom I met personally and also via these groups. Shree V. Ram Chandran, Prof. V. Krishnamurthy, Sunder Hattangadi. G. Murthy gaaru, Nanda Chandran, Benjamin, Madhava, etc., are few with whom I had extensive discussions on some of the topics.

I have great pleasure in writing this Foreword to the book 'Journey Beyond: A Non-Dual Approach' containing articles based on the discussions by Dr. Kuntimaddi Sadananda on various topics in Advaita Vedanta.

Dr. Sadananda is a versatile person. Though a scientist by profession, he has made a deep study of Advaita Vedanta and has been giving talks on this subject during the past several years. This book consists of articles based on these talks and his discussions on Advaita discussion groups.

There are, in all, 221 articles dealing with various topics in Advaita Vedanta. They take the reader from the fundamental principles of Advaita to the highest reaches. A study of these articles will be sufficient to make a person quite knowledgeable in the subject.

In the first article entitled 'A Talk on Advaita Vedanta' the author has established on the basis of various shruti texts and reasoning that the ultimate purport of the shrutis is Advaita or non-duality. The article is written in a lucid style and with profuse quotations from the Upanishads.

In article 8, 'Fundamentals of Vedanta', the questions that arise in the mind of a beginner in the study of Vedanta are brilliantly answered. The fundamentals are brought out in an easily understandable manner.

In article 12, the place of the intellect in bhakti is beautifully brought out and the popular notion that bhakti is purely emotional is shown to be wrong.

In all the articles we find a new approach to the problems that confront one in the course of life. They make delightful reading.

The articles also cover such subjects as the historicity of the Mahabharata, the life and teachings of Bhagavan Ramana, the differences between Dvaita and Advaita, the nature of devotion and many others. This is thus a very wide compendium of spiritual knowledge.

Taccintanam tatkathanam anyonyam tat prabhaashaNam - Thinking of the Absolute, talking about it and discussing it with others - this should be the non-stop practice of a seeker of Brahman, says the Pancadashi. Sadananda (Sada-ji, as I would call him), son of the well-known scholar and writer Kuntimaddi Seshacharyulu of Rayalaseema, has been doing exactly this for the past thirty years. The enormous task of collecting all his own talks and writings (in the two advaita lists on the net) in the form of a book has been accomplished by himself over a decade now. The welcome result of this Saadhanaa is this unique book: Journey Beyond: A Non-dual Approach, containing the Discussions on Advaita Vedanta.

The very first discussion (on the PurNamadhaH mantra) turns out to be an excellent preview (not only in content but in the matter of style of presentation) of the whole book in the form of an epitome of advaita and constitutes a representative sample of what the author has in store for us in the rest of the book. Right in the beginning, when he discusses the Fundamentals of Vedanta, the compassionate leisurely way in which he patiently answers basic questions by resorting to similes and syllogisms culled from everyday experience reminds us of the step by step process by which the Veda-mAtA Herself takes us up the spiritual ladder in Her Upanishadic expositions. Wonderful expositions abound throughout the book, such as, Why the kaaraNasharIra is called so, Why the dualist point of view is not supported by the Shastras, why the modern neo-advaita approach cannot deliver the intended teaching of the scriptures, why bhakti and jnAna are not mutually exclusive, what is the advaitin's role in society, claborate explanations for the mahAvAkyas from total scratch, and innumerable other nuances of advaitic philosophic thought over the traditions.

Unique ideas from the creative mind of the author are everywhere, such as, Neutralized vaasanaa snakes become ornaments of the divine manifestations like Shiva having snake garland and Vishnu having a snake- bed. There are rare informative facts and concepts which one does not come across in ordinary reading; such as the information about stones that are picked up by the sthapatis for temple building.

Sadaji has beautiful golden expressions like: 'Devotion is not an emotional display of feelings but natural emotional expressions that arise as a result of intellectual appreciation'; and 'Scriptural statements are addressed to a contemplative seeker and not to a literary scholar' who might be looking only for hair-splitting grammatical adventures. Having been initiated in younger ages into non-absolutist philosophies, Sada-ji has a special talent for pointing out the slips in dualist thinking that come in the way of one's understanding of advaitic logic and that talent is pleasantly transparent in his discussions (the book has several examples of this) with the dvaita and vishishtadvaita groups of seekers.

In wading through the myriad topics of the book we see Sada's vast experience of interacting with Western minds; that experience shows up in the didactical way in which he answers questions of all types - elementary. conceptual, technical, problematic, as well as those which verge on the mischievous.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages