An open library in progress. Explanations are editorial drafts, with sources for further study. Translations await specialist review. How to read our labels.
Begin with the question
Do not assume that every teaching describes an individual merging into a universal consciousness. Even traditions that share Sanskrit terms can disagree about what ultimately exists.
Reading source: What is Vedanta? ↗
An Advaita-oriented introduction. Other Vedānta schools require their own commentarial sources; this introduction cannot represent them all.
Hold on to the differences
Keep the particular school visible. An Advaita account of Ātman and Brahman, Classical Yoga’s kaivalya and Ananda Marga’s cosmic cycle call for different explanations.
Reading source: Cosmology · Brahmacakra ↗
The organization’s presentation of its metaphysical model; not an empirically demonstrated cosmology.
A useful way to compare
- Name the particular tradition and text.
- Keep the native term next to its English explanation.
- Ask what the term does in that text.
- Describe a resemblance as a rough functional parallel when appropriate.
- Record the differences and the limits of the comparison.
A good comparison can leave questions open. It becomes more useful when the reader can see which steps come from a source and which come from an editor.
Open the comparison explorer