Advaita Yoga

The word advaita means “non-duality”.

Advaita is discussed much in the direction of philosophical thought called Vedanta. In fact, Vedanta is not integral teachings but an aggregate of personal views of several Indian philosophers, who tried to comprehend and develop some ideas of ancient Indian Vedas. They all lived on the Earth much later than Krishna. Most likely they all read His Teachings contained in the Bhagavad Gita. Yet not all of them could understand it.

And this is strange: through the Bhagavad Gita God explained to people the essence of Brahman, the essence of Ishvara, the essence and meaning of individual souls and their development in a series of incarnations. (Let me note that the Teachings of Krishna completely accord with other Teachings imparted by God to incarnated people during millennia! You can become acquainted with them in our book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present).

From the Teachings of Krishna it is quite clear that Brahman is a Manifestation and Realizator of the Will of Ishvara (the Primordial Consciousness, the Creator). In other words, the terms Brahman and the Holy Spirit have the same meaning.

Yet in the concepts of Vedantists, the term Brahman sometimes means Ishvara, and sometimes the Absolute; this originates from the philosophical views which existed far before the Divine Incarnation of Krishna.

We are not going to analyze now in detail true and false views of Vedantists. Let us concentrate now on the most valuable idea of Vedanta — on advaita.

By the way, Krishna also said:

I am Ishvara. But I am also Everything (that is the Absolute, in modern language). And Everything is a whole of Ishvara and the World of Brahman, that is the sphere of Brahman’s activity, or in other words the Creation including all material bodies and evolving individual souls incarnated in these bodies. And the task of people is to develop themselves up to Cognition of Brahman and Mergence with Him in Brahman-Nirvana, and then to cognition of “Me in My innermost essence” and Mergence with Me in the aspects of Ishvara and the Absolute.

In other words, God in the aspect of the Absolute is ONE WHOLE ORGANISM. And every one of us has to realize — not only in thoughts and words but also through the practice of development of oneself as a consciousness — this Total Coessentiality of His, also one’s own Coessentiality to Him.

And the realization of Coessentiality to the Absolute can really take place only after achieving Mergence with the Creator-Ishvara. After all, it is the Creator — with His countless Arms of Love — Who permeates and unites all His Creation.

So, it is in these terms that one has to talk about advaita!

For people who possess a certain spiritual experience it is clear that realization of this task is possible only through gradual ascent over steps: first — cleansing of the mind, body, emotional sphere, main energy structures, then — further refinement of the consciousness and its quantitative growth with the help of special meditative methods.

* * *

This is not the same as what one can observe in the practice of the modern sects of Vedantists, where they see the solution of these grandiose tasks of the development of individual consciousnesses only in reasoning and autosuggestion…

This may result in such absurd perversion as the following: “I am an integral part of God. I have understood this, therefore all my thoughts, desires, emotions, words, and deeds are Divine! I, as an integral part of God, have a right to do absolutely everything! I manifest the Will of God here on the Earth! Everyone has to obey ME! Everyone has to submit to MY will! If I want, I can take away your possessions! If I want, I can kill you! I will humiliate you in order to destroy your ‘I’ and to help you through this to realize your coessentiality with ME!…”. And so on…

Psychopathology which can arise against the background of such perverted sectarianism is not rare. In the past, I met such monsters several times among drug addicts who regarded their “path” as the spiritual path… And the result of walking this “path” is the destruction of the intellect, and this leads to a loss of morality, coarsening of the emotional sphere, and attaining a hellish state of the soul even during life in the body… And after disembodiment, they go to hell and even attain “non-duality”, “advaita” (in inverted commas, of course) with… protopurusha… after full destruction of the soul in hell: in “blazing inferno”…

* * *

But one has to go to the true advaita in a completely different way: in the way taught to us by God!

What does one have to do specifically? What are the most important things on the Path of advaita yoga?

In the intellectual-ethical aspect, one has to comprehend most fully the principle of Ishvarapranidhana, which implies feeling constantly that the Divine Consciousness permeates everything including my body. This helps to feel constantly the presence of my Teacher-God not only nearby but even inside me; and this is especially important in extreme situations. And let extreme situations remind me about the necessity to come back to this feeling! What do You want to tell me by this? — this question to God has to arise in us in such situations.

Another important principle is the principle of aparigraha — freedom from unnecessary things: in order to avoid scattering the attention and to keep it focused on God.

Jesus Christ once said to His disciples: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”*. These are very significant words! As a result of the work on transforming ourselves, we have to unite ourselves as consciousnesses transformed into giant spiritual hearts refined to the state of Ishvara — with the Heart of the Absolute, that is with Ishvara Himself, with the Creator.

Let us recall also how Juan Matus taught the same; I mean the episode with a table (we described it in the book Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and the Present): only when the tonal (that is the world of material objects) is cleansed from everything unnecessary — only then one can successfully contemplate and study the nagual — the non-material components of the Absolute.

One should also learn the principle of hri — lowliness of mind. If we want to achieve Mergence of two consciousnesses, two souls — there must be formed ONE consciousness. And if we want to achieve such a Mergence with God — then one has to understand that Ishvara is INFINITELY GREAT in comparison with the individual consciousness aspiring to merge with Him, however highly developed this consciousness may be! And this Mergence represents INFUSION of oneself into Him and DISSOLUTION of oneself in Him.

Let me repeat: there must remain only ONE Consciousness; there is no place for a second one!

And it makes sense to start learning this as early as possible — by developing the lowliness of mind in oneself: a lowly, humble, non-ambitious, non-offended feeling of oneself — before the Greatness of the Universal Absolute.

One can achieve this only through mastering the art of psychical self-regulation based on cleansing and development of the chakras; this subject is described by us in detail in the book Ecopsychology.

For example, the head chakra ajna (its name, by the way, is translated as “non-wise”) is the carrier of the lower human self, which is also “the center of egocentrism”, so to say. And only after we have learned to switch off ajna by moving the concentration of the consciousness into the chakra anahata — only then and in no other way can we achieve the possibility to realize the lowliness of mind!

Also one has to trace intellectually in oneself such emotions as feeling offended, irritation, anger, self-defensive ambitiousness, jealousy and other similar states of the soul — in order to overcome these vices in oneself.

It is also necessary to learn and realize all other ethical principles; we described them in our book Ecopsychology in the chapters dedicated to an analysis of Patanjali’s Teachings called ashtanga yoga. Let everyone think by themselves about the importance of the principles of ahimsa, sathya, daya…

Everything said above allows one to understand that such methods of the so-called “modern psychology” as insulting, humiliation of students-victims by their “instructors” — with the purpose of allegedly destroying in them their lower selves — these methods are not only completely ineffective but have to be considered as brawling, which is a bright manifestation of the most disgusting qualities of these instructors…

* * *

What concerns the psychoenergetical line of development — one has to master all stages of cleansing of the chakras and main meridians, the methods of development of oneself as a subtle and growing quantitatively spiritual heart.

This can be realized, by the way, only against the background of hesychia — inner quietness, which can be achieved provided the spiritual heart has grown significantly. We discussed this subject many times in our conversations and in our books including Ecopsychology.

And then one has to study the entire multidimensional Absolute: first, Its parts, and then uniting all Its parts together in the meditation NAM.

Let me tell about the last meditation in more detail, because there are too many cases of its misunderstanding.

The point is that in the spiritual aspect, this word has to be understood not as a name but as a description of God.

First, by meditating this way we can attune and even merge by the consciousness with all Divine Teachers known to us. It is quite appropriate that Krishna becomes the first of Them.

Then we add attunement to all the mastered strata of the multidimensional Absolute, which are represented on the scheme for studying the structure of the Absolute published in the book Ecopsychology. (Of course, one must not merge with the content of hell, but one should know well the border with this stratum.)

One has to learn to merge with the Consciousnesses of the higher eons. The mechanism of such Mergence is the meditation called total reciprocity. Mastering this meditation allows one to cognize the Nirvanic state of Nirodhi.

When we gain the ability to assemble in ourselves all the main eons together, with emphasize put on the Abode of Ishvara — then it means that we have traversed a very significant part of the Path.

And it is better to master these stages on corresponding places of power. For example, for finding the border with hell and for mastering all transmirror eons, and then for performing the meditation NAM — one can find corresponding optimal places. Seek — and Divine Teachers will help worthy disciples!

And then what?

Then one has to double all these with the help of special methods of buddhi yoga; thanks to this, one’s capability to perceive Ishvara and the Absolute also doubles — and this will be enough for achieving the fullness of Mergence with God in both of His Highest Aspects.

And only then advaita becomes a reality!

Yet it does not mean an end to the work on self-development!…

(See demonstration of exercises in the film).

Vladimir Antonov, Ph.D. (in biology)
(chapter from the book
Forest Lectures on the Highest Yoga)

Translated from Russian
by Mikhail Nikolenko