According to Adwait, the goal of human life can be deduced from the explanation of the self. The individual self is Brahman itself and its supposed distinction from it is entirely due to the illusory adjuncts with which it identifies itself.

Man’s ultimate aim should be to realize this truth. Realisation of this truth already exists, but it is eclipsed by ‘agyan’ or ‘avidya’. The Adwaitim speak of ‘Vairagya’ or Detachment and ‘Gyan’ or knowledge as the two disciplines to be cultivated.

Adwait postulates the ‘Param-Brahman’ as the Supreme Unmoved Mover, the Causeless Cause. It has no attributes. It is formless, final and supreme energy. When it limits itself, it becomes Saguna Brahman or Ishwar or Purusha.

This Purusha then creates a phantasmagoria or illusive forms called Maya. Some consider this Maya a real as Sankhya does, but the Adwait thinkers consider Maya .as unreal and transient. This view was systemised by the incomparable Shankaracharya.

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The Adwaits hold that an external object is merely the product of our mental states. Prakriti is nothing more than illusion and Purusha is the only reality, it is the one existence that remains in the universe of ideas. This is the Parabrahman of the Adwaits.