size of soul

[Guest guest]

Vidyasankar writes:

 

"... it has to be described as all-pervading, i.e. infinite in nature."

 

Couple of questions:

 

1. Pervading implies something to be pervaded. What does brahman pervade?

 

2. What does "infinite" mean in the sense of advaita? does it mean that

the atman cannot be described in terms of space, and hence, for a lack

of a better word, "infinite" is used to characterize Brahman?

 

I realize that this might get deeply into the "neti, neti," but I

would be interested in getting a birdseye summary of the use of the

negative in characterizing Brahman (i.e. in terms of what it is

not, rather than what it is).

 

3. If the notion of size cannot be ascribed to Brahman, why

then does the Tait. Upanishad specifically mention "size" (or lack

thereof) in its characterizationof brahman (viz. satyam-jnanam-anantam

Brahma)? It seems that the upanishad is quite hung up over the

relative dimension of Brahman.

 

Out out curiosity, does Sruti mention anything about the "color" of

Brahman (or its lack thereof)? I do recall reading something to this

effect, but I am not sure if it is in a commentary, or is part of

Sruti?

 

However, it clearly is not in the Tait. Upan. Thus, it is very

interesting that the portion of the scripture that deals directly

with the nature of Brahman, does not address Brahman's color.

It would seem to me that our ancient rishis viewed sky as

essentially infinite in extent, but yet it possessed color. It

would thus seem to me that our ancient philsophers would be

tempted to treat color and space as distinct and independent

attributes (at the phenomenal level).

 

sk

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 19 Sep 1996 skaushik wrote:

> Vidyasankar writes:

>

> "... it has to be described as all-pervading, i.e. infinite in nature."

>

> Couple of questions:

>

> 1. Pervading implies something to be pervaded. What does brahman pervade?

 

Everything, but since there is nothing other than brahman, brahman

pervades Itself, no?

>

> 2. What does "infinite" mean in the sense of advaita? does it mean that

> the atman cannot be described in terms of space, and hence, for a lack

> of a better word, "infinite" is used to characterize Brahman?

>

 

I tend to think of "infinite" not as spatial only, but as spatio-temporal.

In this sense, infinite is synonymous with eternal. It is because brahman

is, that the concept of infinity is possible. It is because brahman is,

that the concept of eternity is possible. And so on.

 

> I realize that this might get deeply into the "neti, neti," but I

> would be interested in getting a birdseye summary of the use of the

> negative in characterizing Brahman (i.e. in terms of what it is

> not, rather than what it is).

 

Neti, neti is a means of transcending words to describe brahman. It is not

as if there are some entities out there that can be excluded from brahman.

However, the minute one says, brahman is X, one is excluding all that is

not-X from brahman. One way of getting around this is to say, brahman is

not this, not that, where this and that could include all X's and

not-X's. This is the neti, neti approach. Another way is to say, brahman

is X, and brahman is also not-X. The upanishads explicitly say the former,

but they do not explicitly say the latter, they only say "sarvam khalvidam

brahma."

 

Thus, neti, neti (at least according to the advaita interpretation) is

*not* a way of characterizing brahman in terms of what it is not. On the

other hand, it is a statement of the fact that brahman cannot be

characterized by particulars. However, it is not a denial of brahman,

because the upanishads also say that the brahman is to be known as that

which *is*.

 

About the Taittiriya upanishad and the dimension of brahman, I will have

to read more about it. Maybe I can post something in future.

 

Regards,

 

S. Vidyasankar