 The Vedānta and Sāṃkhya-Yoga is the most important school that develop the spiritual and mystical insights in the Upaniṣads. The Advaita Vedānta is well-known for upholding monism, there is only one reality and that is Brahman. Furthermore, the Advaita Vedānta philosophers argue that the individual self and the supreme Self (Brahman) are identical. The plurality of the external world of everyday experience is explained away as an illusory projection (māyā), a cosmic illusion which is a product of our ignorance. The nature of this self is simply pure consciousness. Self, according to the Advaita Vedānta is not to be understood as a substance that has the property of consciousness but rather it is consciousness itself, the principle of illumination or manifestation (prakāśa). This consciousness manifests all things. Just as without the sunlight, the universe would be shrouded in darkness, similarly without consciousness nothing would be known or manifested’ (Gupta 2003: 31–2; cf. 106). According to the Advaitins,