Look around you for a moment.
Everything is moving.
The clouds are drifting across the sky. The trees are growing. The cells in your body are dying and regenerating. The Earth is spinning around the sun, which is itself traveling through a galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars.
Even the things that appear perfectly still are in constant motion.
And somehow, amidst all this movement, there is an awareness of it all.
You are here, experiencing the universe.
For thousands of years, philosophers, sages, and mystics have tried to understand what exactly is happening here. What is the nature of this reality we find ourselves in? Where did it come from? Why does anything exist at all? And what exactly is this mysterious awareness through which we experience everything?
Some of the most fascinating answers to these questions come from the nondual spiritual traditions of India and Tibet. Nonduality, at its simplest, suggests that the separation we ordinarily experience between ourselves and the world is not the ultimate nature of reality.
But while these traditions often arrive at remarkably similar descriptions of spiritual awakening, they offer surprisingly different ontologies about what reality is at bottom.
And the more I’ve explored them, the more I’ve come to appreciate that these differences may be just as important as their similarities.
The Unchanging Ocean
Advaita Vedanta, one of the great philosophical traditions of India, teaches that the ultimate nature of reality is Brahman: infinite, unchanging consciousness.
According to Advaita Vedanta, everything we experience—our bodies, thoughts, emotions, relationships, and the entire physical universe—is an appearance within this consciousness.
Imagine the ocean: on its surface, countless waves rise and fall. Some are enormous, others barely noticeable. Some last for minutes, others disappear almost as soon as they emerge.
Each wave appears to have its own separate existence, but ultimately every wave is nothing other than water.
Advaita teaches that our individual identities are something like these waves. We believe ourselves to be separate beings, born into a world that exists independently of us. But our true nature is the same infinite consciousness underlying all experience. The spiritual journey is therefore not about becoming something new, but rather recognizing what we have always been. It's not about connecting to god, but rather recognizing that god is what we ourselves are.
There is something profoundly liberating about this idea; if our essential nature is already infinite and complete, then perhaps we don’t need to spend our lives desperately trying to become somebody. Perhaps we can simply be.
But there’s a question that has always bothered me about this philosophy: if Brahman is infinite, perfect, and unchanging, why does this constantly changing universe appear at all?
Advaita responds that the universe is not a real transformation of Brahman. It is an appearance, made possible through Maya, the mysterious principle associated with illusion and ignorance.
The analogy often used is a dream: while dreaming, we experience an entire world filled with people, places, emotions, and events. Upon waking, we recognize that the dream world never existed independently of the mind experiencing it.
Similarly, Advaita suggests that spiritual awakening reveals the universe to have never existed independently of Brahman.
But this seems to leave something unexplained: even if the universe is a dream, why is there a dream in the first place? What accounts for the extraordinary diversity, movement, creativity, and apparent intelligence of the world?
Advaita answers this by describing ignorance as "beginningless," yet capable of ending through realization. Its philosophers have developed sophisticated explanations for this paradox.
Still, I find myself wondering whether the philosophy has explained the existence of the dream, or simply explained why the dream should not be considered ultimately real.
Advaita Vedanta is pretty much epistemologically airtight as a philosophy, but I find it to be ontologically incomplete in its inability to account for why anything changes or appears at all; whether it’s either an appearance or real.
The Dancing Ocean
This is where another Indian tradition, the tantric lineage of Kashmir Shaivism, offers a fascinating alternative.
Like Advaita, Kashmir Shaivism teaches that consciousness is the ultimate nature of reality, but it introduces a crucial distinction.
Kashmir Shaivism posits that consciousness is not merely an unchanging presence in which the universe appears, but that consciousness is inherently creative.
In Kashmir Shaivism, ultimate reality is understood through the inseparable principles of Shiva and Shakti: Shiva represents the luminous, unchanging nature of consciousness, while Shakti represents its intrinsic, dynamic power of awareness, freedom, and manifestation.
The universe is not an appearance mistakenly superimposed upon consciousness, as Advaita Vedanta would posit; it is consciousness expressing itself in a very real way.
Returning to our ocean analogy, imagine that the waves are not merely appearances that need to be seen through, but actually genuine expressions of the ocean’s nature.
The ocean doesn’t become something other than water when it forms a wave. Its movement is simply another expression of what it is; similarly, Kashmir Shaivism suggests that the infinite can manifest as the finite without ceasing to be infinite.
This philosophy has a particularly beautiful understanding of desire; in many spiritual traditions, desire is understood primarily as an obstacle to liberation. We suffer because we want things to be different from how they are. Kashmir Shaivism recognizes this problem but also sees desire as a contracted expression of something fundamental: Iccha Shakti, the universal power of will - or, to use more metaphysical terms, the desire of god.
From this perspective, the impulse to create, explore, love, experience beauty, and participate in life need not arise from a sense of incompleteness; it can arise from fullness. It doesn't need to be transcended as much as integrated.
Two lovers need not only meet out of a mistaken desire to experience the wholeness of god through each other … they can meet as a joyful expression of the wholeness that already exists within them.
A musician doesn’t necessarily create to try to "connect with an audience" - rather, music is simply what consciousness, already whole and perfect, wants to express in that moment through the musician.
This philosophy resonates deeply with me; and while I would argue that it makes a metaphysical claim that makes it slightly less ontologically rigorous that Advaita Vedanta, it fills me with a zest for life that sometimes feels lacking in other spiritual traditions. Rather than viewing spiritual awakening as a withdrawal from the world, Kashmir Shaivism suggests that awakening can reveal the world itself as an expression of the sacred.
But it also introduces another philosophical problem; if everything is the spontaneous expression of an infinitely free consciousness, why does that consciousness manifest suffering, ignorance, and limitation?
Why would something already perfect choose to experience itself as imperfect?
Kashmir Shaivism answers that this self-concealment is an expression of consciousness’s absolute freedom.
But is that truly an explanation? Or have we simply given the mystery of existence a beautiful name?
The Empty Ocean
The Tibetan Buddhist philosophies of Dzogchen and Mahamudra approach these questions from a very different direction. In the Madhyamaka tradition that these lineages come from, developed by the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, nothing possesses an independent, inherent existence; everything arises in dependence upon other things.
A tree depends on sunlight, soil, water, air, and countless other conditions. Remove those conditions, and the tree cannot exist. The same is true of our bodies, our thoughts, our identities, and even our experience of consciousness. Nothing exists entirely by itself. This is the Buddhist understanding of "emptiness."
Emptiness does not mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists independently, possessing a permanent essence of its own. What we call a tree is an ongoing relationship between countless conditions. What we call a person is an ongoing relationship between bodily processes, memories, perceptions, and experiences.
Even consciousness, according to this view, should not be turned into some independently existing substance behind reality. This accounts for the fundamental ontological split between Buddhism and Hinduism - the former asserts that there is no ultimate self or god, while the latter maintains a permanent, unchanging self ("Brahman" in Advaita Vedanta and "Shiva/Shakti" in Kashmir Shaivism).
This philosophical approach underlies important interpretations of Tibetan Buddhist traditions such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra; Dzogchen is particularly interesting because it emphasizes the direct recognition of primordial awareness, often described as simultaneously empty and luminous.
Awareness is not a solid thing that can be found or possessed, and yet experience is undeniably present; thoughts, sensations, and emotions arise and disappear without requiring an independently existing observer behind them.
Tthis raises an extraordinary possibility; perhaps reality doesn’t need an ultimate substance holding everything together.
Perhaps the universe is an endless unfolding of relationships, without anything existing independently at the bottom. This view is certainly the least metaphysical, and is often why scientists and rational philosophers tend to take Buddhist ontologies more seriously than Hindu ones; from a purely scientific perspective, a case can be made that the Madhyamaka view is more defensible than Advaita Vedanta or Kashmir Shaivism because Madhyamaka categorically denies a base layer to reality, while the latter two reify an eternal godhead or “self” that cannot empirically be proven.
But I find myself returning to the same question; if everything is empty of inherent existence, why is anything appearing at all?
Dependent origination, as outlined in Madhyamaka Buddhism, explains how things arise in relation to other things.
But does it explain why there is an entire universe of relationships in the first place?
If everything depends on something else, what accounts for the existence of the whole system?
Madhyamaka challenges the assumption that such a system requires an independently existing foundation, and perhaps that challenge is correct.
But it doesn’t necessarily satisfy our curiosity about why there is something rather than nothing. And it can easily tip over into Nihlism in many human minds, minds that, much of the time, need some kind of life affirming reasoning for reality - even if it can’t be proven - to find meaning and purpose in life.
The Wisdom of Not Knowing
The more I explore these traditions, the more I realize that they possess different kinds of philosophical strengths.
Advaita Vedanta offers an extraordinarily economical account of reality; everything is ultimately one unchanging consciousness.
Kashmir Shaivism offers a more comprehensive account of manifestation; consciousness is not only aware, but intrinsically creative.
Madhyamaka offers a rigorous critique of the assumptions underlying both; why should we believe that reality possesses any independently existing essence at all?
If my priority is landing on what I definitely know is true, then I find myself increasingly drawn to the epistemological humility of this last approach.
There is a difference between what we experience, what we can logically establish, and what we believe explains our experience.
We can directly experience awareness.
We can observe that everything around us is changing.
We can recognize that nothing we encounter appears to exist entirely independently of everything else.
But can we establish that consciousness is the fundamental substance of the universe?
Can we establish that the universe is intentionally expressing itself?
Can we establish that reality has no ultimate ground?
These are much more difficult claims, and perhaps the temptation to answer them too quickly is itself something worth examining.
At the same time, I don’t want to confuse philosophical restraint with philosophical completeness; a theory can avoid contradiction by refusing to make claims about things it cannot explain, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it offers the most complete understanding of reality.
Kashmir Shaivism may make a greater metaphysical leap by attributing intrinsic creative power to consciousness. but it also attempts to account for something that seems impossible to ignore: the universe is not merely present and unchanging; t is continuously becoming and evolving. Galaxies form. Stars explode. Life evolves. Human beings fall in love, experience suffering, compose symphonies, and contemplate the nature of existence.
Whatever reality ultimately is, it is extraordinarily dynamic, creative, and beautiful.
And any philosophy claiming to explain the whole of existence must somehow account for this dynamism.
As an artist, I find the view of Kashmir Shaivism to be the most compelling and emotionally inspiring, even as my rational mind critiques it for taking the most metaphysical liberties.
The River and the Ocean
Perhaps the relationship between these philosophies can be understood through a river; imagine standing beside the Ganges as it makes its way through India. You watch the water flowing past you, and every moment, the river changes. New water arrives, old water disappears, currents form and dissolve. The river is never exactly the same from one moment to the next.
Yet somehow, it remains the Ganges.
Advaita Vedanta might invite us to recognize the unchanging reality underlying all these changing appearances - the condition of water itself.
Kashmir Shaivism might invite us to recognize the flowing river itself as an expression of divine creative power - each passing wave just as real as the water that comprises it.
Madhyamaka Buddhism might point out that the river has no independent existence apart from the water, mountains, gravity, rainfall, and countless other conditions that allow it to flow.
Each perspective reveals something different, snd perhaps the mistake is assuming that one of these perspectives must invalidate everything the others have discovered.
I wonder whether the desire to arrive at a final explanation can sometimes become another way of avoiding the mystery itself. As humans, we are so desperate for certainty and control - and we see the deleterious effects of that desperation in the world we live in today.
After all, even if we could establish that everything is consciousness, we could still ask why consciousness exists. Even if we could establish that everything is empty of any independent origin - thus invalidating the Indian concepts of Brahman/Shiva/Shakti, we could still marvel at the fact that appearances arise.
Even if we could explain every physical process in the universe, we might still wonder why there is a universe capable of producing those processes.
At some point, every explanation seems to encounter the mystery of existence itself, and maybe that’s okay.
We can continue investigating, questioning, and refining our understanding without needing to pretend that we’ve reached the end.
The river keeps flowing whether or not we understand what ultimately makes it flow, and we are here, somehow, experiencing it.
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about existence isn’t that we can explain it, it’s that existence is happening at all.
And that, for a brief moment in the history of the universe, we get to be here to witness and participate in it.
To your life,
Aasheesh
PS: if you'd like to learn how to witness and appreciate the mystery of existence with more clarity and depth, Apply for Inner Guru Training and learn to meditate with me.