Self or No Self, Advaita vs Buddha

In Advaita Vedanta, which is known as the non-dual system of the religion, it is said that there is only one Self (Atman) and that is all-pervasive, that is the Supreme Self (Brahmn) and that is the Ultimate Reality. Rest all are the mere 5 sensory experiences happening in the Self and the Self is beyond all the experiences, but being aware of it all, unaffected by any of it. It is everywhere yet its location is nowhere at the same time which means it is beyond space-time continuum. It is the same Self having different experiences through whole universe at once. It is all a divine play(Leela). Duality exists because the Consciousness is locked up in this mind-body matrix which is called the great illusion (Maya) and when it is freed, it starts to perceive the Ultimate Reality, the Oneness of All there is and there is not.

Whereas, Buddhists say there is no Self. There is nothing at the core of it, it is all emptiness (Shunya). What is there are mere sensations, perceptions of the mind and matter which in itself is a temporary illusion. Though both the perspectives agree to this fact that this experiential universe is just a temporary false illusion, their perspectives of the Real are totally different and opposite. One says All is the Self and the other says there's absolutely No Self at all beyond this illusion. 

Now what I say is there is definitely something that is causing and having the whole experience. There definitely is. Masters have tried to express it as "Sat Chit Ananda" which translates to "Truth Consciousness Bliss" which further means Consciousness is the Truth and its nature is neverending Bliss. So then I ask, Bliss is also an experience, so how can you say that the Self doesn't have any attributes? It is still not attributeless Self (Nirgun Brahm). It still has an attribute of the Bliss, so this can not be called the Ultimate Self. So this enquiry points towards the Buddhist perspective that there is no Self. 

In Advaita, after saying that the Self doesn't have any attributes of its own, we are still mistakingly putting attributes to the Self that it is Everywhere and All matter consists of it and all that but while doing that we are doing a fundamental mistake of identifying and even assigning a location to That which has all the attributes in Itself but doesn't have any of its own, which is Everywhere yet Nowhere. So, I feel, in Advaita, we are consuming the half nectar and leaving the other half, mostly because of our lack of perceptual experience.

And when I look at the Buddhist perspective, Bhagwan Buddha was one of the greatest masters to ever enlighten this planet with His Holy Presence, so He could see what was happening around on the name of God and Religion. As per my opinion, He must have seen the entanglements of people around God or Self at that time and must have avoided using such words and terminologies and just focussed on leaving all mental knowledge about God or Self and getting into the state of being nothing and then having the experience of everything. 

So in Buddhism, if we deny the presence of the one unchanging Self and say that there is nothing, so what that means is it is unchanging at the source since nothing always remains nothing, unaffected by anything. We acknowledge the presence of the experience if there is nothing no one to experience the Maya then how do we know about the experience, what is having the experience? Of course, we admit that nothing has no attributes, but how does the nothing know the attributes? That nothing is not dead I assume, is it? And we admit that there is nothing at the root of everything there is, so we can further say that the nothing is ultimately everywhere, right? 

And there coms a time when the witness that Advaita talks about also starts to disappear, there is no witness but the witnessing alone that remains, just witnessing. As Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj says, "There is only Seeing; both the Seer and the Seen are contained in it. Don't create differences where there are none."

Ultimately, Intellectual speculation is just a means to go beyond the illusion, clear the mind and have the experience. It is the experience that matters. We can only know the Ultimate Truth by realizing it in our own experience, these discussions are good and point the mind towards seeking the Ultimate Reality but at the same time, one must be very conscious of just using the intellectual speculations as the means on the path and should avoid getting too attached and entangled in all this. I've heard masters explaining the experience of the Nirvikalpa Samadhi as the experience of the Real Self or the Nothingness. So it sounds like ultimately both Advaita and Buddhist teachings are pointing towards the same reality which is said to be unexplainable with words. So I, personally, don't really find such big of a contradiction between the two. I feel both are right and point towards the same center from different perspectives and both actually compliment each other.

At Last, I hope and pray that may we all find what we are ultimately seeking. OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI HEE.