Philosophy

Māyā is “illusion,” a core concept in the Advaita Vedānta or “non-dual” school of Vedic thought. It’s key to understanding the way you construct the world through false perception. Māyā is thinking you’re separate from the Divine. Enlightenment is realizing this isn’t true.

Dreams, the act of dreaming, and the elusive identities of the dreamer play a central role in the philosophy of the Yogavāsiṣṭha. Reality in this text is always virtual; nothing has fixity. The only constant is change, tempered and formed according to the principles of karma.

This analysis reveals that the self cannot reasonably exist outside of the body and the experience of consciousness. It cannot be intrinsically associated with the physical constituents of the body since it does not have any location, shape or color. Finally, the self cannot be found in the stream of consciousness, within which past thoughts have gone, future thoughts have not yet arisen, and present thoughts do not abide.

In The Simulation Hypothesis, MIT computer scientist and computer-game entrepreneur Rizwan Virk crafts a unique perspective standing at the convergence of the knowledge systems of modernity and of Hinduism and Buddhism and other mystical traditions.

Neil is Associate Professor of South Asian Philosophy and Religious Thought at the University of Alberta.

Tamil Kṛṣṇa bhakti is not a path of disembodied spiritual union; it is an imaginative, holistic, and embodied bhakti.

There’s a certain kind of magic in deity yoga, where we develop an intimate relationship with the deity, the object of our adoration. Pūjā is the procedure of developing this deep and sweet intimacy.

A mūrti is not an idol. It’s a living “vessel” of manifestation, incarnation, and personification. It follows the same logic that if you want to drink water, you require a glass.