4 ms·

> First the depth and clarity of thinking by ancient and medieval Indian scholars writing in Sanskrit in relation to key philosophical and existential questions

> First the depth and clarity of thinking by ancient and medieval Indian scholars writing in Sanskrit in relation to key philosophical and existential questions is extraordinary. Personally I am currently inclined to think that the advaita vedanta tradition may have the most accurate understanding of the nature of consciousness I have yet seen. Moreover this tradition is largely based on purely logical arguments, which, while perhaps not 100% convincing to a modern reader, are I think definitely worth exploring. Can you think of any resource that would provide an overview of what you're getting here that doesn't require months of reading? Something to just get one's feet wet, to know what is out there to be learned if one is willing to invest the time?

tgflynn 4y ago
With respect to advaita vedanta I would recommend the YT videos of Swami Sarvapriyananda. All of his longer talks on advaita say more or less the same thing so recommending a single video is more difficult, but this may be a particularly good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EijmfagFw20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EijmfagFw20. The main figure of classical advaita is Adi Shankara. You can probably find some translated/commented texts of his in book form. If you mean more generally the whole of classical Indian philosophical thought it is really a vast subject of which I have barely begun to scrape the surface, so there's not a lot I can recommend there. I'm mostly still at the stage of reading related wikipedia articles. EDIT: One more thing I should add is that there were also heterodox schools which explicitly rejected some or all of the assumptions of Hinduism (such as reincarnation). For example Charvaka (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka) was a materialist school.
- mistermann 4y ago
  Thanks for the tips, I will give them a go!
sankalp22 4y ago
Read a Book by swami vivekananda, you will know what you r yearning for.

tgflynn 4y ago

With respect to advaita vedanta I would recommend the YT videos of Swami Sarvapriyananda. All of his longer talks on advaita say more or less the same thing so recommending a single video is more difficult, but this may be a particularly good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EijmfagFw20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EijmfagFw20. The main figure of classical advaita is Adi Shankara. You can probably find some translated/commented texts of his in book form. If you mean more generally the whole of classical Indian philosophical thought it is really a vast subject of which I have barely begun to scrape the surface, so there's not a lot I can recommend there. I'm mostly still at the stage of reading related wikipedia articles. EDIT: One more thing I should add is that there were also heterodox schools which explicitly rejected some or all of the assumptions of Hinduism (such as reincarnation). For example Charvaka (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka) was a materialist school.

mistermann 4y ago
Thanks for the tips, I will give them a go!

sankalp22 4y ago

Read a Book by swami vivekananda, you will know what you r yearning for.