In Advaita, as in Sāṅkhya-Yoga, the practitioner has the ultimate objective of returning to a primordial (original) wisdom.•In this school of thought, then, the universe started when eternal Brahman changed from being potential to actual. Brahman was already present, but it manifested in its current form by its own power.•Thus, reality is simultaneously the same everywhere(Advaita, or all part of Brahman), and also different (Dvaita, as separate parts of Brahman).