Teachings & philosophy

Advaita means “not two”. As systematised by Adi Shankaracharya, Advaita Vedanta holds that Brahman, pure consciousness and being, is the only ultimate reality. It holds that the innermost Self of each person, the atman, is not different from Brahman. The world of many separate things is not simply denied. It is treated as appearance (maya), real at the level of everyday experience but not at the ultimate level.

In this view, the root of human bondage is ignorance (avidya): mistaking oneself for the body, the mind and their roles. Liberation (moksha) is not a new state to be produced. It is the removal of that ignorance through knowledge (jnana). That knowledge is gained by hearing the scriptures from a qualified teacher (shravana), reflecting on them (manana) and contemplating them deeply (nididhyasana).

The four amnaya seats were set up, according to tradition, to protect and teach exactly this. Whoever heads the Dwarka Sharada Peetham inherits the duty of teaching Advaita. That is why the philosophy belongs on this page, even though it is not his personal invention.

Advaita teaches that self-knowledge comes through a teacher who has received it from his own teacher. The Mundaka Upanishad tells the seeker to go “with fuel in hand” to a guru who is learned in scripture and established in Brahman. The four seats exist to keep this chain (parampara) unbroken.

What his own life documents Documented

His own biography is a clear example of this ideal. News reports agree that he came to Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati's ashram as a youth, took brahmachari initiation from him, and later received dandi sannyas from him in Varanasi. He then served as the guru's representative at Dwarka. On 12 September 2022 he was named his guru's successor at the ashram where the guru had just been laid to rest. By these accounts, a single relationship ran through more than five decades of his life.

Sannyasis traditionally stop travelling during the four monsoon months, the chaturmasya or chaturmas, often counted from Guru Purnima. They stay in one place and teach. For a Shankaracharya this is the longest sustained teaching period of the year.

Documented: text on the Peetham-linked website records his chaturmas from 3 July to 29 September 2023 at Sharada Peeth, Dwarka, with discourses on the Bhagavad Gita. We could not find published details of later chaturmas.

Editorial: the choice of text fits. The Gita is one of the three foundations of Vedanta. Shankara wrote a commentary on it that is still studied in every Math of his line. Its theme of acting without attachment to results, while knowing the Self as untouched by action, speaks to renunciants and householders alike.

Everything in this chapter is drawn from dated news reports. Quotations appear only where a named outlet reported the words directly. Translations from Hindi are our own and marked as such.

Religious teachers and political power

Speaking at Piparia in Madhya Pradesh in February 2026, he drew a line between spiritual authority and political alignment. ETV Bharat reported his words:

In the same report he is quoted as saying, “हम लोग जो बोलेंगे वह देश के पक्ष में, धर्म के पक्ष में… बोलेंगे”. In our translation: “Whatever we say, we will say in favour of the nation and of dharma.” He also criticised the absence of teaching about Sanatana Dharma in education.

Cow protection

He has consistently supported a ban on cow slaughter. At the Prayagraj Maha Kumbh on 29 January 2025, he and the Shankaracharyas of Sringeri and Jyotirmath issued a joint 27-point Dharmadesh. According to India TV, it included a demand to ban cow slaughter and to declare the cow the “Mother of the Nation”. In February 2026 he said that all four Shankaracharyas agree on protecting the cow (ETV Bharat).

Sanskrit

At the same Kumbh gathering he stressed the importance of Sanskrit (India TV, 29 January 2025). The emphasis matches his own training, which began with Sanskrit at his guru's ashram.

The Ayodhya consecration, January 2024

Before the Ram temple consecration on 22 January 2024 there was widespread comment about the Shankaracharyas' absence. He told India TV on 15 January:

ANI, reporting from Ahmedabad on 20 January 2024, described him welcoming the consecration as a moment that had come after roughly four to five hundred years.

Hindus in Bangladesh

On 19 August 2024 he told Republic: “The governments of India and Bangladesh should sit down and discuss the situation of Hindus.”

Two layers run through his public life. One is the old, abstract philosophy of the seat: Tat tvam asi, the identity of the Self with the absolute. The other is concrete and often topical: the cow, Sanskrit, the Ram temple, the safety of Hindus abroad, the independence of religious leaders from politics.

Within the tradition these are not in tension. A Shankaracharya is expected both to teach the highest knowledge and to speak as a guardian of dharma, the order of duty and practice that prepares a person for that knowledge. The Bhagavad Gita, which he chose for his 2023 chaturmas, is the classic text that joins the two. It teaches action in the world and knowledge of the Self as one discipline.

Readers who want his teaching in his own words should go first to his spoken discourses, which are in Hindi. Summaries in the press, including those quoted here, cover only the parts that made news.