Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on December 4, 2011.

In this talk, Swami Bhaskarananda reflects on what it means to seek the ultimate truth, distinguishing between ordinary truths known through sense experience and reasoning, and the higher truth toward which spiritual inquiry is directed. He notes that human understanding often moves from “lower truth” to “higher truth,” as childhood beliefs and early worldviews give way to clearer knowledge. Drawing on the Mundaka Upanishad, he presents the ancient question: what is that, by knowing which everything else becomes known? Vedanta answers with Brahman, the highest reality, expressed in the Upanishadic great sayings that affirm the identity of the Self and Brahman and point to the awareness of inherent divinity in all beings.

Swami Bhaskarananda then outlines a classical Advaita method of discrimination between the knower and the known, showing how the body, vital energy, mind, and ego are objects of awareness, while the Atman is the witnessing consciousness, beyond change, parts, qualities, and action. He addresses common questions about creation and divine action through the concept of Maya—described as inexplicable—and uses vivid analogies to clarify how the world can appear real to us while remaining, from the standpoint of Brahman, untouched. He concludes by noting that in Advaita, the divine is understood as beyond past and future, abiding in an eternal present.