Discrimination Between the Real and the Unreal

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	• Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination Swami Prabhavananda, Christopher Isherwood Vedanta Press, 1970 - 147 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A must for those on the spiritual path

Shankara's Vivek Chudamani is a classic text orignally written in Sanskrit and is a must of anyone on the spiritual pathway to enlightenment (Hindu/Buddhist pathways). It makes you take a hard look at your beliefs and practices, social norms and customs and helps you separate the wheat from the chaff. Swami Prabhavananda and Christoper Isherwood have done an excellent job of translating it into English. The translation is easy to read, although the material is by no means a light read and is meant for someone who is serious about the pathway. It is a great book to read again and again as your awareness grows.

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Non-Duality Teaching of Shankara

The Crest Jewel of Discrimination teaches about Atman and Brahman, and how they are the true existence. Everything else is illusion. Atman and Brahman are a state of non-duality, which means that our physical existence is not real. It is the equivalent of a dream. Our life purpose is to realize the Atman, the Self.

The teachings of Advaita Vedanta are meant for everyone. Even though Shankara was a Hindu philosopher, this is applicable in every religion. A Course in Miracles teaches non-duality as well.

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Discrimination Between the Real and the Unreal

It is a matter of debate whether Viveka-Chudamani was actually written by Shankara, due to dissimilarities with Upadesa-Sahasri, which was almost definitely written by Him. Never the less, this is still a nice book on non-dual teachings.

There is a good introduction to both Shankara, and non-dual philosophy, before the Crest-Jewel of Discrimination starts. All of the basics of Advaita philosophy are covered in the Introduction, written so that the beginner should have no problem assimilating them. The brief account relating who Shankara was, and some of the events of his life are helpful and enjoyable to read also.

The basic premise and message of the book is about discriminating the real from the unreal, the Atman from the Non-Atman. According to the Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, the aspirant after Self-Realization should have a spirit of renunciation for the world, and a distaste for sense-pleasures, materialism, etc; basically all things that are not-Atman, and therefore, not Eternal. Aspirants should disassociate themselves from the body, and instead always associate themselves with the Eternal Atman, which is identical with Brahman. Helpful examples from everyday life are used to demonstrate the principles, such as the snake and the rope demonstrating Maya, or superimposition on the Brahman.

Once halfway through the Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, it seems to become very repetitive, stating over and over again that our true nature is the Atman, identical with Brahman, and how everything else is unreal. Even so, this is a nice inspirational book, and makes for a good introduction to non-dual philosophy as well.

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Foundation book of non-dualism

In my library Shankara's Crest Jewel of Discrimination (Viveka Chudamani) is the companion of Narada Bhakti Sutras. They are equally essential. Even though every World Religion teaches the otherness of God (in one way or another) nevertheless the concept of our identity with the Absolute makes some appearance in each of them. This is the foundation book of that belief in Hinduism and, as such, it is a vital part of the world's spiritual heritage.

Best Definition/Description of God

We are currently witnessing a spate of atheistic and agnostic, generally scientistic, denials of the existence of God (Often perceived as appropriate responses to the ongoing onslaught of machinations of the fundamentalist media). Alongside these inceasingly popular books, we have a lengthening list of works which approach religion and the objects of its concern from a phenomenological standpoint, materlialistic analyses tracing what amounts to a "natural history" of God, or God as conceptually conceived. How can one adopt the pretense of attempting to study God when one's attention is focused on the ever shifting sands of temporal/material existence, where the mind is kept ever flirting with one image, or illusion, after the next?
I beg all of the authors of these books to turn now to this venerable masterpiece - The Crest Jewel of Discrimination, which gives a precise and comprehensive description of the nature and existence of God: ". . . beginningless, endless, immeasurable, unchanging, one without a second . . . pure existence, pure consciousness, eternal bliss, beyond action, infinite, omnipresent . . . cannot be grasped since it is transcendent . . . cannot be contained, since it contains all things . . . without parts or attributes . . . subtle, absolute, taintless, indefinable, beyond the range of mind and speech . . . reality itself, established in its own glory, pure, absolute consciousness, having no equal, one with a second . . ." This extract may serve the prospective reader as an example of the succint yet comprehensive analysis given here. The book is, as always in the style of Sankara, eloquent in its spare and direct rendering and clarification of the most obsessively mystifying, often abstruse and yet essential subjects. The translation here, of 1947 vintage, is justly celebrated.
Wisdom is revealed on every page - remarkably, every question the devoted seeker might ask is answered in detail and, best of all, the reader can carry this diminuative treasure trove anywhere - the ultimate distillation of Truth in a mere 150 pages.

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reviews: page 1, 2

A classic text on the path to God through knowledge. The basic teaching is that God alone is the all-pervading reality; the individual soul is none other than the universal soul.

According to Shankara, it is the ignorance of our real nature that causes suffering and pain. The desire for happiness is essentially a longing to awaken to who and what we truly are.

Through the path of self-knowledge, Shankara clearly teaches how to awaken from ignornce created by the mind, and abide in the peace of our true nature.

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