What Advaita Vedanta says about the self
Advaita's claim about the self is one sentence said in four ways, and it is not a modest sentence: what you are is not different from what everything is. The interesting part is not the claim but the approach, since the tradition spends most of its effort on the mistake it thinks you are making before it asserts anything. Ten concepts here, beginning with the error and ending with a disagreement Advaita has never settled with Buddhism.
Dehadhyasa — The Identification with the Body
The first error named is the sense that I am this body. The reply is almost grammatical: the body is seen, and you are the one seeing it.
Vivekachudamani 155
Adhyasa — Superimposition
Superimposition is Shankara's word for two things being confused: a rope taken for a snake, a self taken for a body and mind. His commentary on the Brahmasutras opens on this point.
Brahmasutra Bhashya, Introduction
Drik Drishya Viveka — Discrimination of Seer and Seen
A short chain: the eye sees the form, the mind sees the eye, awareness sees the mind, and awareness is never itself seen. Follow it and the self is whatever cannot be turned into an object.
Drik Drishya Viveka 1
Chidabhasa — The Reflection of Consciousness
One sun appears in many water pots. Advaita uses the image to explain why a single awareness looks like a crowd of separate people.
Brahmasutra Bhashya 3.2.18
Jivatman and Paramatman — Individual and Universal Self
The individual self and the universal Self are held to be one, with the apparent difference caused by ignorance. This is the structure every Advaita argument is trying to collapse.
Vivekachudamani 243
Tat Tvam Asi — That Thou Art
That thou art, said by a father to his son: the subtle essence of everything is what the boy already is. It is teaching addressed to one person, not a slogan.
Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7
Aham Brahmasmi — I Am Brahman
I am Brahman is the same recognition stated in the first person. Advaita treats the change of grammar as the change that matters.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10
Ayam Atma Brahma — This Self Is Brahman
This self is Brahman points at the awareness present while you read the sentence. The wording is careful: this, not somewhere else and not later.
Mandukya Upanishad 2
Who Am I? — The Direct Path of Ramana
Ramana Maharshi reduced the practice to one question asked of the questioner. His image is a stick used to stir a fire, which burns away with everything else.
Who Am I? (Nan Yar)
Anatta and Atman — The Buddhist-Hindu Debate
Buddhism denies a permanent self; Advaita affirms a universal one. The two describe much the same investigation and disagree about what is left at the end of it.
Comparative Vedanta
Read quickly, Advaita sounds like a flattering idea about being divine. Read slowly, it is an instruction to keep subtracting until there is nothing left to call yourself, and it is the subtracting, not the conclusion, that these texts spend their time on.