Sathya Sai Baba on Advaita Darshanam Jnaanam - experience of non-dualism/oneness is wisdom/knowledge; Sathya Sai lived in that experience of oneness

Last updated on 19th Sep. 2021

Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on Adi Shankara lecturing on Advaita, as a young man to a conference of scholars in Kasi (Varanasi, India) (Please note that the English translation of Jnaanam below uses the words wisdom and knowledge interchangeably):

Many scholars started asking him (Adi Shankara) questions, "What is the principle of Advaita"? "It is nothing but the vision of oneness. Advaita Darshanam Jnanam (experience of non-dualism is wisdom)". What is this knowledge? Is it physical knowledge, worldly knowledge or secular knowledge? None of these. It is the knowledge of the Self. That is the fundamental knowledge. But no scholar is making efforts today to recognise this fundamental principle. Understand this truth clearly. Jewels are many, but gold is one. Likewise, the fundamental principle of the entire creation is only one although it manifests in various names and forms.
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The above extract is from Bhagavan's discourse on 7th September 1996 as reported in Sanathana Sarathi (English), June 2015.

Ravi: For me, "Advaita Darshanam Jnanam" is a deeply held and cherished belief but I have not had any such experience of non-dualism (and so I am not "wise" or a "Jnaani"). Further, as of now, to be frank, I am not interested in having such experiences as I think I will not be able to handle such experiences, and the great changes that such experiences will, I am quite sure, bring to one's life.

Bhagavan, I deeply believe, lived in that experience of oneness, and his divine powers of knowing what others have done or are thinking seems to me to have some relation to the Advaita oneness experience that He lived in.

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19th Sep. 2021: Yesterday I did some Internet search on: advaita darshanam jnaanam. I was astonished and very happy to see that the three search engines I checked - Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo - all gave this post as the first result! I mean, I was very happy that Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's words on advaita darshanam jnaanam (which are given in this post) were the the first result. The related screenshots are given below:

[On PC desktop, to open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

That led to some thinking on my part. I felt that I should slightly modify this post's title to better reflect the contents of the post. The earlier title was: "Sathya Sai Baba on Advaita Darshanam Jnaanam (experience of non-dualism is wisdom/knowledge)". I changed it to: "Sathya Sai Baba on Advaita Darshanam Jnaanam - experience of non-dualism/oneness is wisdom/knowledge; Sathya Sai lived in that experience of oneness". I also corrected a typo in the post.

For me, one of the greatest aspects of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba was his extraordinary ability to just know what others did/are doing, including what they are thinking. Not only did I read about the experiences of others in this regard, I myself have experienced that power or ability of Sathya Sai and so have some people that I know, who shared those experiences with me. That power or ability of Sathya Sai was a validation of Advaita Vedanta. I mean, it was not just theory but a living experience for extraordinary mystical beings like Sathya Sai.

Readers may want to view my related post: Sathya Sai Baba's Advaita Teachings By John Hislop Ph.D. - Edited Transcript of Video, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2013/11/sathya-sai-babas-advaita-teachings-by.html which provides the links of the video referred to in the blog post title.