https://tube.leshley.ca/videos/watch/4225f2ec-5340-4121-98c3-bf369ed9f58c Can liberation be achieved — or is the very idea of “achieving” it the problem? In this lecture we meet Śaṅkara (c. 700–750 CE), the great systematizer of Advaita Vedānta and arguably the most influential philosopher India ever produced — a man who died in his early thirties and whose commentaries remain the standard twelve hundred years later. We begin where honesty demands: separating the historical philosopher from the legend, and unpacking the dating controversy that determines who he was actually arguing with. From there we walk through the system itself: • The core claim: Ātman = Brahman — and why it’s an identity statement, not poetry • Two levels of reality — vyāvahārika and pāramārthika — and the clay pot analogy • Māyā: what it actually means (and why “the world is an illusion” gets it wrong) • Adhyāsa — the root error of superimposing what you’re not onto what you are • Why mokṣa cannot be produced, earned, or achieved — only recognized • The four mahāvākyas — “Tat tvam asi” and its companions • Nirguṇa vs. saguṇa Brahman — the move that enraged later Vedāntins • Which texts he really wrote — and which famous ones he almost certainly didn’t • His debt to Gauḍapāda, the four mathas, and the critics from Rāmānuja to Madhva Along the way: why a mirage is the perfect image for his philosophy, why he preferred the quiet shell-and-silver mistake to the dramatic rope-and-snake, and why calling him a “crypto-Buddhist” was the deadliest insult of his age. Whether you find his central claim liberating or terrifying — that the only thing standing between you and freedom is a misidentification — this is philosophy at the highest level of craft. Next lecture: Rāmānuja and Madhva — the thinkers who answered him. 📚 Learn with Leshley All my links https://gravatar.com/lyonleshley My Library: https://library.leshley.ca My peertube: https://tube.leshley.ca/ #Advaita #Vedanta #Shankara #IndianPhilosophy #Philosophy #Upanishads #Sanskrit #Hinduism Tue, 13 Oct 2026 20:02:32 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://tube.leshley.ca https://tube.leshley.ca/lazy-static/avatars/0bd1d7c1-816f-4345-9358-f080e8986bec.png https://tube.leshley.ca/videos/watch/4225f2ec-5340-4121-98c3-bf369ed9f58c All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://tube.leshley.ca/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.