The Teachings
Reverence for the Guru, devotion to God, fidelity to dharma, and the patient study that leads to knowledge of the Self.
The Jagadguru teaches mostly through the spoken word — the Anugraha Bhashanams, discourses of blessing, given in Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi at Sringeri and on his journeys. The Peetham records and publishes them.
On this page, words set as quotations are reproduced exactly as published by Sri Sringeri Sharada Peetham, with their source. The surrounding text is an editorial explanation of each theme, drawing on the tradition in which he teaches. It should not be read as his own words.
गुरु
The Guru
No theme returns more often in the Jagadguru’s teaching than the Guru. The word is traditionally explained as “the one who removes darkness”. In the Advaita tradition the Guru is not a mere instructor: it is through the Guru that the words of the Upanishads become living knowledge rather than information. The Jagadguru’s own life — a boy of fifteen asking at the riverbank to be taught, and then eight years of study at his teacher’s side — is itself a teaching on this point.
Without the Grace of the Guru, no one can attain fulfilment of the purpose of life.
Only that knowledge which is obtained from the lotus lips of the Guru is potent.
भक्ति
God and devotion
Advaita is sometimes imagined as cold or abstract. At Sringeri it is the opposite: the Acharyas are worshippers first, and the life of the Peetham revolves around the worship of Sri Sharadamba and Sri Chandramouleeshwara. The Jagadguru has composed many hymns to his Guru, to the earlier Acharyas and to various forms of God. His teaching on devotion is direct: God is everywhere, and in difficulty it is God who is our refuge. Temples, in this view, are places where that universal presence is made approachable.
God is omnipresent – this is the Truth. God is everywhere, God exists in every particle – this is the Truth.
Only God helps man during difficult times – no one else.
धर्म
Dharma
Dharma is right conduct in its widest sense: truthfulness, non-injury, duty to family and society, and the observances prescribed by scripture. The tradition holds that dharma sustains both the individual and the world — that right action brings harmony, and its neglect brings disorder. Speaking at the opening of the golden jubilee of the Jagadguru’s Sannyasa in November 2023, his successor recalled a teaching of the Jagadguru that expresses this conviction in simple terms:
If we do the right deed, then Lord Varuna will not trouble us in any way and simply allow us to continue with our activities.
आत्मज्ञान
Self-knowledge
The final aim of the tradition is knowledge of the Self — the recognition that one’s true nature is not the body or mind but the one reality the Upanishads call Brahman. This is the teaching of Advaita that the Jagadguru received from his Guru and has expounded in his classes on the Brahma Sutras during the Chaturmasya. It is not a belief to be adopted but an understanding to be arrived at through study under a teacher, reflection and contemplation. The philosophy is introduced in more detail on the Advaita Vedanta page.
कर्म
Knowledge and action
Shankaracharya taught that liberation comes through knowledge, not action — yet the same tradition insists on action rightly done. Duties performed without selfish attachment, and offered to God, purify the mind and make it fit for knowledge. The two are stages of one path rather than rivals, which is why the Peetham places equal weight on worship, service and study.
साधना
Spiritual discipline
Sadhana is the daily practice that steadies the mind: prayer and worship, the chanting of the divine name and of scripture, study, and self-restraint. At the Jagadguru’s 56th Vardhanti the Peetham launched a Gita Jnana Yagna, encouraging devotees to learn and recite the Bhagavad Gita — a practice that joins study and devotion.
वैराग्य
Detachment
Vairagya is not indifference to the world but freedom from being ruled by its gains and losses. The sannyasi embodies it outwardly by renouncing possessions and personal ties; the householder cultivates it inwardly, doing all that duty requires while holding its results lightly.
सदाचार
Ethical living
Sadachara, good conduct, is the foundation on which every spiritual practice rests. Honesty, compassion, self-control and respect for elders and teachers are not preliminaries to be outgrown; in the tradition they remain the visible sign of an inner life that is genuine.
शास्त्र
Sanskrit and the Shastras
If one theme is written into the institutions the Jagadguru has built, it is the value of traditional learning. He himself was formed by it — in the Veda, Mimamsa, Nyaya, grammar and Vedanta — and he has worked to ensure that students and scholars of these disciplines are supported: through the Shastra Poshaka Sabha founded in 1992, the Sanskrit campus at Sringeri, lifelong allowances for learned pandits, and the Peetham’s annual assemblies of scholars. The Shastras are treated not as relics but as living means of knowledge, which lose their power if they are not studied and taught. See Education & Seva.
सम्प्रदाय
The role of tradition
Sampradaya — received tradition — is what makes a teaching trustworthy across centuries. It guards against the drift of personal interpretation by anchoring each generation to the understanding of those before. The Jagadguru’s role is, in this sense, one of faithful transmission: to hand on intact what he received, as his predecessors did. The Guru Parampara page traces that chain.
गृहस्थ
Worldly responsibility and the spiritual life
Most who come to Sringeri are householders, not monks. The tradition does not ask them to abandon their responsibilities; it asks them to fulfil them as dharma, with devotion and without greed, and to reserve time each day for worship and reflection. Seen this way, family, work and service become part of the spiritual life rather than obstacles to it — and inner transformation proceeds through the very circumstances in which one already lives.
Closing
Worship, study, right conduct and the grace of the Guru: in the teaching of Sringeri these are not separate paths but a single way of life, lived by the Acharya and offered to all who come.
Quotations are reproduced exactly from pages of sringeri.net, the website of Sri Sringeri Sharada Peetham, including English translations of the Anugraha Bhashanams published there. Explanatory text on this page is editorial.