- Does Advaita = Yoga?
No. Advaita is a fact, the fact that there is only one reality. Yoga is the process of re-uniting the alleged separate individual self with the universal Self. This process ends with the recognition of advaita also known as enlightenment: since there is only one reality, this reality must be the reality of the universal Self and of the individual self. They are one as that reality, just as the space inside a bottle is the same space that contains the bottle. The bottle seems to create a separation that doesn’t exist in the space as such.
- In either, who is the seer - the body or the mind or the self or the awareness? If the answer is awareness, what exactly does it see?
The seer is the self and the awareness. They are one and the same. It sees the body as body sensations (pain, pleasure, thirst, cold, etc), the world as sense perceptions (sounds, smells, etc), the intellect as thoughts and imaginations.
- Why did Buddha walk away from the source of Advaita?
I am not familiar with this event. My answer would be: because, having already drunk from it, he was no longer thirsty. That’s a Zen koan. :)
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