If advaita stands, all other systems(including dvaita) fall

M Suresh msuresh at INDIA.TI.COM
Tue Jan 7 22:20:53 CST 1997


On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Anand Hudli (ahudli at APPN.CI.IN.AMERITECH.COM) wrote:

[ ...deleted ]

>  The other category consists of philosophies which accept nihilism. Buddhist
>  schools are examples.
>
>  advaita is clearly nondualistic and at the same time non-nihilistic. By this
>  very definition, if advaita is established, all the dualistic philosophies
>  as well as the nihilistic ones are demolished.

  Somehow I have always found the criticism of dvaitins that advaita is
 identical
  with buddhism to be very valid.

  Buddhists say that the reality behind everything is emptiness and advaitins
 say
  that the reality behind everything is non-dual brahman. Both are two different
  words to denote something which is beyond all dualities and can be treated as
  equivalents.

  Of course in buddhism it is negation and in advaita it is affirmation, but
 both
  are concepts which point to the same eternal non-dual state beyond all
 concepts.

  Therefore IMO the core of both buddhism and advaita teachings are the same
 though
  they differ in details and practice.

  This is the reason why many advaitins are somewhat familiar with buddhist
  philosophy.

[rest deleted ...]

>  Anand

-Suresh.



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