Vivekachudamani, which means ‘the crown jewel of discrimination,’ is a premier Vedanta text written in the 8th century by Shankaracharya, one of the most important teachers in the Vedanta teaching tradition. As do all Vedanta teachings, it begins with an invocation of the Self and discusses the uniqueness of the quest for enlightenment (moksha). After discussing the qualifications required for enlightenment and emphasizing the need for a teacher, it proceeds to present the method of discrimination required to remove the confusion between the Self—limitless awareness—and the ‘not-self,’ which is the world and the body/mind entity we mistakenly believe ourselves to be. It discusses the nature and origin of bondage, how attachment is maintained, how liberation happens, the nature of the individual, the nature of the Self, the benefits of obtaining Self-knowledge, karma for a liberated person and what happens after enlightenment.

Because the original text has over five hundred verses, many of which are redundant, a great mahatma, Swami Paramarthananda of Chennai, selected 108 of the most essential verses, which were then commented upon in a book by his guru, Swami Dayananda Saraswati and which are the basis of Edwin Faust’s excellent commentaries. It is best studied in conjunction with the video.

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