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The practice of Advaita is based on ethical foundations, though it is not explicitly stated as in Raja Yoga with its set of ‘Yama” and ‘Niyama’ rules of Patanjali in his eight-part Yoga or aShTA~Nga Yoga. Many advaitins may consider that when they try to quench the stream of thoughts, it does not matter what those thoughts were…The practice of Advaita is not that simple.
The three gateways to ‘hell’, according to the Bhagavad Gita are lust, anger and greed. Avoiding these gateways would be the most essential step in the practice of advaita. Advaitins, as a group, are given to intellectual arguments and ‘logical’ reasoning. They can easily invent ways to circumvent the moral injunctions. Herein lies the danger in the practice of advaita.
An important and direct approach to ethical norms or standards is the dictum that one should synchronize one’s thought, speech and action. In mathematical terms, there should be ‘one to one correspondence ‘between thought and speech, between speech and action, and between action and thought. Great sages and saints ALWAYS maintained this one to one correspondence. How often we think something, but speak differently. It could be that we wish to avoid hurting some one’s feelings. Yet our speech is not synchronized with our thoughts. Many moral stories in Hindu mythology demonstrate this correspondence. In some cases, saying that the ends justify the means, one may adopt devious or ambiguous statements. A dying sage was told that ‘Aswathama is dead’. Aswathama was the name of his son. Grieved to hear that, the sage died. But ,actually the name ‘Aswathama’ referred not to his son, but to a horse in the cavalry! Such devious means are common occurrence in mythical stories or in epics, but should not constitute one’s practice in spiritual realms. We all know that such diabolical or ambiguous statements are in the province of politics!
It is obvious then that one should constantly watch one’s thoughts, speech and actions to align them truthfully. This I consider to be the second lesson in the practice of ethics for advaitins as well as all spiritual sAdhaka-s.
The aspect of ahimsa or non-injury or avoiding ‘himsa ‘ is a basic ethical question. Jains go to great lengths to avoid injuring even small insects and animals. It is indeed most difficult to practice ahimsa… Does that mean only non-injury to animals and insects?…It goes far beyond that. If we utter harsh words or insinuating remarks, we are doing himsa. If a man looks at a woman with lustful eyes, he is committing himsa. When one sells an inferior product to another, he is doing himsa. The list can go on. Again an advaitin should be cautious about neglecting ahimsa principles.
Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of ahimsa, gave us a wonderful instance of practice of ahimsa. He fought against the British rule in India, but he never disliked or hated the British people. In fact he had many close friends among the British people.
The Advaitins have two basic practices: viveka [discrimination] and vairAgya [dispassion]. As it is commonly understood, these are mental processes. These are like two wings of an aircraft… a common analogy in the advaita literature. But we need a tail plane to stabilize our thought patterns till we reach the state of sahaja samAdhi. It is alright to have glimpses of “Reality’ or advaitic experience or anubhUti . But that is fleeting indeed. If one wishes to be ‘stabilized’ in advaitic or Vedantic experience as a j~nAnI or Advaitin, one needs the tail plane of ethical practice. Otherwise an advaitin may have a tail-spin leading to depravity, as many philosophers and new-styled gurus have experienced in mythical times as well as in modern times - in our living memory. Therefore the practice of ethical aspects in the course of Advaita is as important as the practice of viveka and vairAgya.
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