Stoicism and Advaita Vendanta

By Shantanu -
Stoicism as a philosophy originated in ancient Greece by a sage called Zeno in the third century before Christ. The ideals and preachings of Stoicism finds echo in eastern monist thoughts, particularly Vedanta in India. One of the most famous patrons of Stoicism was Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor who was an adoptive son of the Roman emperor Antonius Pius, in the second century after Christ. In his book called "Meditations" he had provided a comprehensive overview of how Stoic principles work in practice. Stoicism deals with self control and control of emotions to understand universal reason, not to get perturbed either in happiness or in sorrow. The same concept is echoed in Upanishads "Dukheshnanudignamana Sukhecha Vigataspriha" theme (remain steady and equally composed under both joy and sorrow) which is recurrent in Vendanta as well as Bhagavat Gita, where the lord Krishna advises people to remain calm and steady under all circumstance and devote all fruits of work to God. Gita also teaches one that that work is best which is done without a desire. Stoics want to live in harmony with nature, here nature means god. In Vedanta, shakti or prakriti is synonymous with nature and utimately purush and prakriti or brahman and shakti are one and the same. Stoics want to live a simple life, sans any materialism, effectively leading a spiritual life. Vedanta advocates complete immersion in God, develop a knowledge of the absolute truth through simple living and negative everything else as Maya.
These are but a few of the parallels. This shows how intrinsically related the ancient wisdom were.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 9, 2019 at 11:20 AM

    Stoicism and advaita Vedanta,
    a marriage made in heaven

    ReplyDelete

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