Sri sankaracarya's Atman-Brahman and the relation between Man and God

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to show how two pedagogues belonging to two different religious traditions both arrived at the conclusion that there is a transcendence of knowledge and being in the sense that these are limitless. I am referring here to Sri Sankaracarya a self acclaimed jTvanmukta (liberated while still alive) belonging to the Advaita Vedanta tradition and to Thomas Aquinas a canonised Saint of the Catholic Church. Through metaphysics and theology they both give an account of how empirical and revealed knowledge leads us to know what relates us with that which transcends our being. By using the philosophical category of 'relations' Sankara refers to consciousness while Aquinas refers to existence as that which relates our being with that which transcends it. '- Sankara shows that consciousness of the 'self' (aham) as a body leads us to consciousness of our Pure Self or Atman-Brahman which is Absolute Consciousness. On the other hand Aquinas shows that knowledge or our 'being' ( esse) leads us to knowledge of a transcendental esse whose essence is existence. The knowledge that what Is merely 'aham' (Saiikara) or an 'esse' (Aquinas) transcends itself, helps us to understand better who this 'being' that I call 'my self' is absolutely. In this dissertation I will refer to the metaphysical and theological writings of these two men of genius from the aspect of the relation between the human and the Divine.