ABSTRACT
It appears incongruous at first glance that a philosophy of non-duality should speak of sādhanā, or individual spiritual practice, given that the ultimate ontological conclusion of Advaita Vedānta is that nothing other than Brahman or the Supreme Reality exists. Yet Advaitic commentators, including Śaṅkara himself, have gone to great lengths to describe and prescribe sādhanā for Advaitins. While sādhanā is typically thought of as a set of physical and mental practices, rituals, or meditation, in Advaita Vedānta the highest sādhanā is nothing other than jñāna, or knowledge of the Self as Brahman, which is argued to be the only possible solution to transcendental ignorance, the cause of all suffering and the main spiritual and philosophical problem of Advaita. However, to achieve this jñāna, the Advaitin must develop a certain level of cittaśuddhi, or mental purity, which requires karma, or external and internal practices, also known as sādhanā. This chapter critically examines the relationship among sādhanā as jñāna, sādhanā as karma, and the Advaitic goal of mokṣa or liberation using scriptural and commentarial sources to show that not only is sādhanā intrinsic to the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, but it is indeed an ineluctable dimension of the life of an Advaitin.
