Guest guest Posted August 4, 2001 Report Share Posted August 4, 2001 I was browsing through the advaitin archives. First thought: I have missed an enormous amount of useful discussions and presentations. Well, that is the price I pay for having been indifferent to the advaitin postings all these months. Second thought: Can I cover the backlog systematically? Very soon I discovered that this is impossible. So I decided to choose my subject and search for the relevant articles. As I was browsing I bumped into the expression: 'Definition of brahman'. Even here I found the archives do not allow me to get all the articles on this subject. Instead it took me on to all articles which had even a passing reference to this subject. That was again an enormous task for me to cover!. So I decided to read a few articles by Sadanandaji, and some responses to them by other esteemed members. So in writing this article of mine on Infinity and brahman, I might have missed some key observations made by several members. Please pardon me for the same. I am therefore amenable to corrections and will be thankful to members if they refer me to the relevant postings that I should read but have missed. (Incidentally I do not yet know how to use the archives to quickly get at a particular posting by a member on a particular date on a particular keyword). Here I go. The concept of Infinity (in Mathematics) and the concept of 'anantam' (in the Vedantic description of 'brahman' as it is -- technically known as 'svarUpa lakshaNa') are radically different. In Vedanta there is only one 'anantam'. That is the Absolute. Because it is absolute infinity, there should not be anything missing there and so it is full and therefore it is Bliss Supreme. (Because if it were not Bliss Supreme, then it would be lacking something!). Thus 'anantam' and 'Anandam' are only two ways of saying it. You cannot define it, because you would then be delimiting it. You cannot prescribe it, because you would then be circumscribing it. You cannot specify it because you have to go outside it to do so. In Mathematics on the other hand Infinity can be defined, prescribed and specified very precisely. Of course it took more than twenty centuries of groping in the dark for mathematicians to come to this stage of defining it precisely. Finally they came to grips with the problem in the 19th century starting from the work of Cantor. First, we have to recognise that in our ordinary scientific work we bump into two kinds of infinities. One is the answer to the question: How many numbers are there in the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... .? Let us call this aleph-nought. The second occurs in trying to answer the question: How many points (geometrical) are there in the line segment from the number 0 to the number 1 represented on the line in any scale? Let us call this Omega. Cantor proved that Omega is strictly 'greater than' Aleph-nought. Well, I do not intend to give a lecture on the mathematics of infinity through this posting. I am only saying these things to tell you (those of you who have not rubbed shoulders with Mathematics) that there are very precise definitions of these infinities. In fact the definitions are so precise that mathematicians have gone very far now from those early musings of Cantor. The question whether there exists another infinity between Aleph-nought and Omega was 50 per cent. answered in the thirties by Godel and the remaining 50 per cent. was answered by Cohen in the sixties. The resulting answer was so thrilling that it shook the very foundations of mathematics. That answer was: Whether there exists another infinity or not between Aleph-nought and Omega is unanswerable by the logic that was responsible for all Mathematics; In other words, both the answers would be consistent with the rest of Mathematics. Therefore the question is undecidable. This concept of 'undecidability' is now an important one in the fields of Mathematics as well as theoretical computer science. Now comes the beautiful parallel between Mathematical Infinity and the Infinity concept embedded in 'brahman'. The Vedantic Infinity concept embedded in brahman leads after a few steps of logic to the statement that 'brahman' is the material cause of the universe. In another posting I shall try to give you seven reasons why this should be so. But 'brahman' being the material cause of the universe is perplexing to our intellect. It is this very perplexity that causes Vedanta and particularly advaita to postulate 'mAyA'. mAyA therefore is Perplexity Supreme and in technical jargon it is described as 'anirvacanIya' -- the English translation for this word could be the word 'undecidable'! What a coincidence! Why is mAyA undecidable? Vidyaranya in pancadaSi clinches the issue: nAsadAsIt vibhAtatvAt no sadAsIt-ca bAdHanAt. (Ch.VI - 2nd part of sloka 128) Meaning: Because it manifests (as the universe), we cannot say it never exists; Because it disappears (at the onset of Enlightenment), we cannot say it always exists. This is the undecidability. praNAms to all advaitins. profvk You may access three on-line books of mine at the following site: http://www.geocities.com/profvk The books are: Science and Spirituality - A Vedanta Perception Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought, Vision & Practice Overview of Hindu worship with spl. refce. to South India _______ Get your free @ address at Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 5, 2001 Report Share Posted August 5, 2001 >profvk ........ >I was browsing through the advaitin archives. First thought: I have > >missed an enormous amount of useful discussions and presentations. Well, >that is the price I pay for having been indifferent to the advaitin >postings all these months. Prof. VK -It is very obvious from your mail, we missed your wisdom. >In another posting I shall try to give you seven reasons why this should be >so. But 'brahman' being the material cause of the universe is perplexing to >our intellect. It is this very perplexity that causes Vedanta and >particularly advaita to postulate 'mAyA'. We will be looking forward to the post. As you are aware Bhagavaan Ramanuja approached the problem differently to explain how Brahman is the material cuase of the universe and also how one can explain - knowing that one knows everything. Only Bhagavaan Madhva of the three aachaarya-s does not agree that Brahman is the material cause. Hari Om! Sadananda _______________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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