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Non-duality is not oneness || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2020)
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4 years ago
Non-duality (Advaita)
Oneness (Ekatva)
Duality
Mind
Experience
Truth
Prakriti
Sansaar
Description

Acharya Prashant begins by stating that oneness, in the absolute sense, cannot be seen. The objective of the verses is to educate the mind. Therefore, when the word "oneness" is used, it is in a sense that will be beneficial to the mind. The mind cannot experience absolute oneness because it operates in duality. All experience requires the experienced object to have a background of its opposite. For instance, on a white wall, you will perceive nothing if it is marked with white. You cannot write with a white marker on a white board. Experience necessitates two; for one to be perceived, the second must lurk in the background. Absolute oneness means the object of perception, its background, and the perceiver have all become one, which makes experience impossible. Therefore, the verse referring to seeing oneness is not talking about absolute oneness. The oneness being referred to is at the level of the constitution of the mind, at the level of the gross and subtle bodies. This is where we are all one. The speaker then distinguishes between oneness (Ekatva) and non-duality (Advaita). Truth is Advaita, not Ekatva. Oneness means unity, whereas non-duality means not-two, and also not-one. In non-duality, not only are two not there, but even one is not there. When you start seeing the various things in this world as not really separate, you find that the boundaries separating them are small and feeble. For example, you and another person might seem hugely separate in your own mind, to the point of being bitter enemies or objects of obsessed desire. However, fundamentally, all human beings are the same: we take birth, we grow, we die, and the mind keeps desiring. This is the oneness of all beings. When you see this, you realize the other person is just like you. An incomplete person is attracted to another, but if you see the other is just as incomplete, the attraction falls. Similarly, if you see the other's incompleteness is worthy of hate, you would have to hate yourself first. Seeing this oneness frees you from the worldly cycle (Sansaar). This is the only way to perceive what is called oneness.