Abstract: This article explores ways to reconcile paradoxes of embodiment in Śaṅkara’s doctrine of liberation-while-living ( jīvanmukti ) by exploring its parallels with lucid dreaming. I engage in lucid dreaming as a thought experiment in which a lucid dreamer could feasibly reflect on dream experience through an Advaita Vedāntic philosophical lens. If approached this way, lucid dreaming...
ABSTRACT This article analyzes Śaṅkara’s use of dreaming in Advaita Vedānta. For Śaṅkara, dreaming functions philosophically as a direct phenomenal inquiry into mind and consciousness. Dreaming also functions as a syllogistic illustration. While dreaming, we experience unreal objects that do not exist apart from our minds. Dreaming thus illustrates the waking world’s nonrealism despite...
Advaita Vedānta articulates a philosophical position of radical nondualism derived from the texts of the Upaniṣads. This entry provides an overview of Advaita Vedānta's metaphysical identification of nonduality with the pure consciousness underlying individual subjectivity. It traces the development of the tradition from its early systematizer, Śaṅkarā, through its later iterations and...