Advaita: Sage Sankara was the expounder of the Advaitic wisdom.+

Sage Sankara is the foremost among the Sages of truth that India has produced. He was the expounder of the Advaitic wisdom. 

Sage Sankara was an original thinker. He was a sage of universal order. He was not a dreaming idealist but a practical visionary. Scripture and reason were the two aids in his arguments. 

Sage Sankara was a great logician, who based his arguments entirely on the principles of logic but without contradicting the intuitional revelations of the Vedas and the Upanishads. 

Sage Sankara’s Advaitic wisdom gave a new dimension to Indian philosophy. It restored the position of the Upanishads as the pristine source of knowledge. It established Vidya, wisdom as the true source of light. It put reason and discretion at the center stage and pushed the rituals out of contention.

Sage Sankara ushered in a new way of looking at our world, at our experience in/with it, by introducing the relative and absolute view of the Universe. When he talked about the infinite and timeless nature of the Universe, it was not in the sense of endless duration, but in the sense of completeness, requiring neither a before nor an after. 

When Sage Sankara referred to Unity of self he was not talking of putting two things together, but he used the term to mean the utter absence of all plurality in the real Self. The Western world had to wait until the beginning of the twentieth century to arrive at those concepts.

Sage Sankara gave credence to an individual’s subjective experience. Sage Sankara placed personal experience and intuition above all the other means of cognition. Sage Sankara said a person’s experience could not be disputed. Sage Sankara declared, “Intuition is not opposed to intellect. Reality is experience. Realizing the Supreme Being is within one's experience.”

Sage Sankara recognized the underlying oneness and the infinite nature of the universe. Sage Sankara asserted, “I am not the mind or the intellect, not the ego. I am the blissful form of the Brahman. Sage Sankara redefined the relationship between Man and the Universe.  Sage Sankara said they were One. Duality, he said, was an error in perception.

Sage Sankara's is not a system opposed to other systems, but a method of interpretation of values. He is a voice of reason and sanity. Sage Sankara is therefore relevant even today. Sage Sankara values reason, encourages the spirit of inquiry, and gives credence to subjective experience and therefore to freedom of one's thought and expression. Sage Sankara suggests intellect is not opposed to intuition. 

Sage Sankara says to take the ego out of the equation in our day-to-day activities of life. Sage Sankara implores us to recognize the essential unity of all beings and their oneness with the infinite space-time continuum. Sage Sankara explained, that the universe is the manifestation of the Athma.

 Vedanta of Sage Sankara comes as a remedy to the conflict and violence-ridden ways of our lives.

 Swami Vivekananda aptly described Sage Sankara’s Advaita as the fairest flower of philosophy that any country in any age has produced

Remember:

Sage Sankara says only through direct knowledge of non-duality that one be enlightened.

Some people claim that in  Sage Sankara's philosophy, there is no place for a personal God (Ishvara) because Ishvara is also described as "false". He appears as Ishvara because of the curtain of Maya. However, as described earlier, just as the world is true at the pragmatic level, similarly, Ishvara is also pragmatically true. 

Just as the world is not absolutely false, Ishvara is also not absolutely false. He is the distributor of the fruits of one's Karma. To make a pragmatic life successful, it is very important to believe in God and worship him. At the pragmatic level, whenever we talk about Atman, we are in fact talking about God. God is the highest knowledge theoretically possible at that level.

Devotion (Bhakti) will cancel the effects of bad Karma and will make a person closer to true knowledge by purifying his mind.

The knowledge of one object implies the ignorance of all objects other than that particular object. The ignorance of all objects in deep sleep means really the positive knowledge of the self, which shines as happiness there. Consequently, the ignorance of the ordinary man in deep sleep is really the knowledge [...]

Remember:~

Sage Sankara’s opponents accused him of teaching Buddhism in the garb of Hinduism because his non-dualistic ideals were a bit radical to contemporary Hindu philosophy. However, it may be noted that while the Later Buddhists arrived at a changeless, deathless, absolute truth after their insightful understanding of the unreality of samsara, historically Vedantins never liked this idea.

Although Advaita also proposes the theory of Maya, explaining the universe as a "trick of a magician", Sage Sankara and his followers see this as a consequence of their basic premise that Atman is real. Their idea of Maya emerges from their belief in the reality of Atman, rather than the other way around.

Sage Sankara was a peripatetic orthodox Hindu monk who traveled the length and breadth of India. The more enthusiastic followers of the Advaita tradition claim that he was chiefly responsible for "driving the Buddhists away". Historically the decline of Buddhism in India is known to have taken place long after Sage Sankara or even Kumarila Bhatta (who according to a legend had "driven the Buddhists away" by defeating them in debates), sometime before the Muslim invasion into Afghanistan (earlier Gandhara).

Although today's followers of Advaita believe Sage Sankara argued against Buddhists in person, a historical source, the Madhaviya Shankara Vijayam, indicates that Sage Sankara sought debates with Mimamsa, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, and Yoga scholars as keenly as with any Buddhists. In fact, his arguments against the Buddhists are quite mild in the Upanishad Bhashyas, while they border on the acrimonious in the Brahma Sutra Bhashya

The Vishistadvaita and Dvaita schools believe in an ultimately attributed Atman. They differ passionately with Advaita and believe that his attriubuteless Atman is not different from the Buddhist Sunyata (wholeness or zeroness) — much to the dismay of the Advaita school. A careful study of the Buddhist Sunyata will show that it is in some ways metaphysically similar to Atman. Whether Sage Sankara agrees with the Buddhists is unclear from his commentaries on the Upanishads. His arguments against Buddhism in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas are more a representation of Vedantic traditional debate with Buddhists than a true representation of his own individual belief.

Sage Sankara wrote Bhashyas or commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, the Upanishads, and the Gita. The Bhashya on the Brahma Sutras is called Shareerik Bhasya. Sage Sankara wrote commentaries on Sanat Sujatiya and Sahasranama Adhyaya.

It is usually said, “For learning logic and metaphysics, go to Sage Sankara 's commentaries; for gaining practical knowledge, which unfolds and strengthens devotion, go to his works such as Viveka Chudamani, Atma Bodha, Aparoksha Anubhuti, Ananda Lahari, Atma-Anatma Viveka, Drik-Drishya Viveka, and Upadesa Sahasri”. Sage Sankara wrote innumerable original works in verses that are matchless in sweetness, melody and thought.

Sage Sankara’s supreme Atman is Attriubuteless (without the Gunas), Nirakara (formless), Nirvisesha (without attributes), and Akarta (non-agent). He is above all needs and desires. Sage Sankara says, "This Atman is self-evident. This Atman or Self is not established by proofs of the existence of the Self. It is not possible to deny this Atman, for it is the very essence of he who denies it. The Atman is the basis of all kinds of knowledge. The Self is within, the Self is without, the Self is before and the Self is behind. The Self is on the right hand, the Self is on the left, the Self is above and the Self is below".

Satyam-Jnanam-Anantam-Anandam are not separate attributes. They form the very essence of Atman. Atman cannot be described, because description implies distinction. Atman cannot be distinguished from any other than He.

The objective world with names and forms has no independent existence apart from Atman. The Atman is a real existence. The world is only Vyavaharika or phenomenal.

Sage Sankara was the exponent of the Kevala Advaita philosophy. His teachings can be summed up in the following words:

Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya, 

Jeevo Brahmaiva Na Aparah

Atman alone is real; this world is unreal; the Jiva is identical to Atman.

Sage Sankara preached Vivarta Vada. Just as the snake is superimposed on the rope, this world and this body are superimposed on Atman or the Supreme Self. If you get knowledge of the rope, the illusion of the snake will vanish. Even so, if you get knowledge of Atman, the illusion of the body and the world will vanish.

Sage Sankara is the foremost among the masterminds and the giant souls that Mother India has produced. He was the expounder of the Advaita philosophy.

Sage Sankara was a giant metaphysician, a practical philosopher, an infallible logician, a dynamic personality, and a stupendous moral and spiritual force. His grasping and elucidating powers knew no bounds. He was a fully developed Yogi, Jnani, and Bhakta. He was a Karma Yogin of no mean order. He was a powerful magnet.

There is not one branch of knowledge that Sage Sankara has left unexplored and which has not received the touch, polish, and finish of his superhuman intellect.

For Sage Sankara and his works, we have a very high reverence. The loftiness, calmness, and firmness of his mind, the impartiality with which he deals with various questions, and his clearness of expression all make us revere the philosopher more and more. His teachings will continue to live as long as the sun shines.

Sage Sankara's scholarly erudition and his masterly way of exposition of intricate philosophical problems have won the admiration of all the philosophical schools of the world at the present moment.

Sage Sankara was an intellectual genius, a profound philosopher, an able propagandist, a matchless preacher, a gifted poet, and a great religious reformer. Perhaps, never in the history of any literature, a stupendous writer like him has been found. Even the Western scholars of the present day pay their homage and respect to him. Of all the ancient systems, that of Sage Sankara will be found to be the most congenial and the easiest to accept to the modern mindset.:~Santthosh Kumaar