[Advaita-l] Is advaita atheistc?

[Amuthan]

namo nArAyaNAya!

On 2/17/07, asad mustafa <asad.mustafa_at_yahoo.co.in> wrote:
> I have a querry. Is advaita vedanta atheistic
> religion?

traditionally, advaita vedAnta includes theism within it and was
*never* considered athesitic. even a cursory survey of the life of
almost any prominent advaita vedAntin of the past is sufficient to
prove this assertion. however, in the recent past it has sort of
become 'fashionable' (unfortunately, imo) for most people who get to
know about advaita to dispense with the notion of a god as if it was
totally unnecessary. i think this is mainly because of the fact that
most hindus are western-educated and hence tend to see a
black-and-white difference between religion and advaita. having said
this, it is also true that advaita vedAnta cannot be classified wholly
under theism since it transcends the idea of a personal god
ultimately.

i would especially like to point out the inter-relationship between
advaita, religion and philosophy as was succinctly stated by shrI
jayanArAyaNan about a month back in this list:

\quote
(source: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2007-January/018770.html)

Sankara's delineation of philosophy and religion is EXTREMELY SUBTLE,
which I will post about later. Briefly, it goes something like this:

1) Establish "The Self is not the body" -- purely by reasoning --
PHILOSOPHY.
2) The statement "The Self is Brahman" -- comes from shruti --
RELIGION.
3) Actually KNOWING the Self -- beyond all philosophy and religion,
and the culmination of both.

\unquote

'shruti' in the above quote refers to the veda-s.

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmRtaH.