Anirvacaniya and the Bridge to Brahman called Adhyaropapavada

[Guest guest]

Namaste to all Advaitins,

 

Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah

 

Om Namah Shivaya

Om Mata Annapurna

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

There are three doctrinal tenets that are central to the darshana of

Advaita. They are:

 

1. The doctrine that words point to universals (samanya)

2. The doctrine that the perceived world is inexplicable

(anirvacaniya)

3. The doctrine that the way to the truth is dialectic (adhyaropa and

apavada).

 

These tenets are intrinsic to Advaita Vedanta. Shankara did not

invent them, he merely revealed what exists in the Matrix of Reality.

These three principles are so closely tied to one another that

looking at any one of them in isolation is not adequate; they have to

be seen as three logically coherent aspects of One Vision.

 

 

ANIRVACANIYA IN THE STAGE OF THE WORLD

 

Brahman is all this. Every single thing that we see is Brahman. We

look at Brahman through unseeing eyes. That is anirvacaniya.

 

The world cannot be said to be either existent or non-existent. It is

called anirvacaniya, the inexplicable. Why is it called anirvacaniya?

Because it is the truth seen through falsity. That which is true in

it is true. That which is false in it is false. The complex of what

is seen is anirvacaniya. It cannot be said to be either true or

false.

 

Anirvacaniya manifests in the matrix of Maya as an inescapable

circularity that afflicts all our seeking for knowledge. We cannot

question what we don’t know. Therefore we already know the thing that

we question. We cannot have questions about what we already know.

Therefore we do not know the thing that we question. The thing

questioned is both known and unknown. That is anirvacaniya.

 

Anirvacaniya is the great paradox of Reality. It is the Matrix of

Maya in which avarana (concealment) operates in vikshepa

(manifestation).

 

 

THE ARCHITECTONIC OF ANIRVACANIYA

 

The truth of a thing is what it is by its innate nature. Therefore, a

thing in truth cannot be anirvacaniya. Anirvacaniya cannot be the

ontological nature of a thing. How then does anirvacaniya arise?

 

It arises in the mystery of the Great Night in which we sleep through

time. This sleep is called anadi-bija-nidra. It is the deep-sleep

through which we look at the world. Sleep is blindness. Blindness

causes erroneous notions to be attributed to things. Blindness and

erroneous attributions are two sides of the same coin called avidya.

 

The world that is seen is necessarily true. Otherwise, the

word 'seen' becomes tainted with its opposite meaning, 'unseen'. Such

tainting exists for a person ridden with avidya. For him, a thing is

both seen and unseen. His 'seeing' is actually the matrix of 'seeing

and unseeing'. That is how anirvacaniya arises. The seeing shows the

truth. The unseeing conceals the truth. A person ridden with avidya

sees the truth of the world, but his avidya also conceals the truth,

and as a result he 'sees', in addition to the truth, also the false

attributions that he superimposes on it. Concealment and false

attribution come together. Therefore the world as it is (claimed to

be) 'seen' by an avidya-ridden person is a complex of truth-falsity.

The complex of truth-falsity is anirvacaniya. It is not the

ontological nature of the world. Anirvacaniya is an expression of the

epistemological conundrum that results in trying to speak the truth

of a thing that has falsity in it.

 

 

ANIRVACANIYA AND ITS CONNEXION TO ADHYAROPA-APAVADA

 

The world that is 'seen' is anirvacaniya. The truth of the world must

be affirmed because it is true. The falsity of the world must be

negated because it is false. By its very nature, the manifestation of

the world in samsara is to be both affirmed and negated. But a simple

affirmation of the 'seen' world would result in affirming the truth

of the world as well as the falsity in it. A simple negation of

the 'seen' world would result in negating the falsity of the world as

well as the truth in it. The method that Advaita uses to cut through

this matrix of truth-falsity is adhyaropa-apavada, a dialectical

device that mirrors the paradoxical affirmation and negation that is

inherent in the matrix of the presented world. The 'seen' world is

first deliberately affirmed (adhyaropa) so that the complex of truth-

falsity that a sadhaka 'sees' is posited in the affirmation, and then

the falsity of his superimposition is rescinded (apavada) from the

complex of the 'seen' world to reveal the untainted truth. For

adhyaropavada to be effective, the sadhaka must have viveka, the

ability to sift the chaff from the wheat. The word 'apavada' has this

connotation – of rescinding what is exclusive to the thing, in other

words, of rescinding what is not in the swadharma of the thing.

 

 

ADHYAROPAPAVADA AND THE EMBRACING OF THE PARADOX

 

The Upanishads say that the way to know Brahman is 'neti, neti'. Does

it mean that the world is to be negated to leave over Consciousness

as the substratum? The answer is Yes, but if the meaning of negation

has not been understood it would result in a kind of nihilism. When

viveka is lacking, there is the danger of negation being misconstrued

on account of the very avidya that the aspirant is ridden with.

Negation is always the negation of one thing posing as another. The

existence of a thing can never be negated, only another thing posing

as the thing can be. It is viveka that discriminates this. The 'neti,

neti' of the Upanishads that reveals Brahman operates in the

luminescent light of this viveka.

 

What does 'neti, neti' lead to? It leads to Absolute Non-Duality, to

Brahman which is so profound, so deep, so incomprehensible, that the

mind will never be able to grasp It. Only Brahman Knows Brahman and

the mind has to get out of the way. The process of adhyaropa-apavada

is the dialectical device to pierce the mind to the Ocean of Light

that encompasses and goes beyond the horizons of the entire Universe

in Its Absolute Oneness. The Universe is said to be only one quadrant

of Its Nature.

 

 

ADHYAROPAPAVADA AND UPADHI

 

The dialectic of adhyaropa and apavada dissolves the relationships

that the mind posits between Brahman and the world. It is the

dissolution of the relations between Brahman and the world that arise

in the illusions of avidya. There is no relation in the relationless

Non-Duality of Advaita.

 

The falsity of relations between Brahman and the world transposes

itself on the world as the world standing in relation to Brahman.

Within the illusions of this relation, the world becomes an upadhi.

The word 'upadhi' means a 'limiting adjunct'.

 

The appellation of 'limiting' comes from the thing as the limitation

that manifestation presents of the thing. It is the limitation of a

thing to the boundaries of what is seen in particular instances of

its manifestation.

 

The appellation of 'adjunct' comes from the thing appearing to be

laid beside something else, or as a thing being juxtaposed on

something else. It implies a duality between the one and the other.

 

In accordance with these two characteristics connoted by the term

upadhi i.e., as limitation and adjunct, there arise two cases of the

way adhyaropa and apavada operates. In one case, the illusion of

duality is dissolved. In the other case, the limitedness of vision is

dissolved.

 

 

ADHYAROPAPAVADA IN THE CONTEXT OF DUALITY

 

The first case of adhyaropapavada is its application to adjunct-ness.

The world is affirmed to be true, and the idea of the difference of

the world from Brahman is rescinded to show the world’s identity with

Brahman. All words and their objects are eternal. They appear as the

world that is separated from Consciousness. Such a world is what is

affirmed in the adhyaropa of the seen world. What apavada rescinds is

the separatedness of the world from Brahman, i.e., the idea of

difference of the world from Brahman. What is left after

adhyaropapavada is the identity of the world with Brahman. It results

in the negation of the superimposition of duality that was cast on it

by avidya. It is the negation of the sleep of avidya, the latent seed

of duality that appears in all the perceptions of an avidya-ridden

being.

 

 

ADHYAROPAPAVADA IN THE CONTEXT OF LIMITATION

 

The negation of duality does not necessarily lead to Kevala Advaita

because the visheshas (forms) persist as the attributive modes of

Brahman. It is the identity relationship as abides in the substance-

attribute identity. It appears in language as the subject-predicate

relation. When the relationship between Brahman and the world is seen

in this manner, it results in Visishtadvaita, wherein the world is

said to be the body of Brahman. But Advaita admits no relationship

between Brahman and the world, not even the substance-attribute

identity. Advaita is the grandest expression of the purnatva of

Brahman where not a blade of grass or an atom exists apart from the

Great Formless Brahman.

 

In Advaita, words point to only samanya. And the relationship between

samanya and vishesha is the absolute identity in which the vishesha

is merely a limited vision of the unlimitedness of samanya. Samanya

cannot be perceived or conceived; what is seen of it is its

limitedness (vishesha). Samanya is the infiniteness of a things

nature. Samanya is the cognitive capacity of the Pure Knowledge of

Brahman that appears as the re-cognitive capacity (pratyabhijna) in

the witness of all beings (jives).

 

In Vissishtadvaita, words point to both samanya and vishesha. So, in

its final vision of Brahman, the visheshas persist, whereas in

Advaita the visheshas are subsumed in the formlessness of the

samanyas (knowledge of things) in Brahman.

 

Adhyaropa affirms the forms that are seen in their limitedness, and

apavada rescinds the limitedness of vision to reveal the

unlimitedness of forms in their samanyas that are the Pure Knowledge

of Brahman. It is the negation of the limitedness of visheshas and it

leads to nir-vishesha Brahman. This is Kevala Advaita, the absolute

fullness of Brahman that does not leave out a single thing in the

universe. It is the Brahman of the Vedas.

 

 

TATASTHA LAKSHANA AND SWAROOPA LAKSHANA

 

The common interpretation of Advaita is that the world is

(unconditionally) mithya. It holds that the Sruti describes Brahman

with attributes merely as an expedient measure, and that these

attributes are tatastha lakshanas which are ultimately mithya. But

such an interpretation of Advaita leads to an

irrational 'understanding' of Shankara’s statements regarding

creation. Shankara says that Sruti speaks about creation so that

Brahman may be pointed out by negating it. What does it mean? It

doesn’t make sense if we look at it through the common interpretation

of Advaita. After all, everybody sees the world. Why not simply say

that Brahman is the Substratum and negate the world? Surely, the

world may be negated without having to deliberately affirm the

opposite (that there is actually a creation) only to negate it

subsequently (by saying that there is no creation). The method

suffers from two faults: that of superfluity, and that of over-

pervasiveness. It suffers from superfluity because it is already seen

that way. It suffers from over-pervasiveness because it allows for a

thousand different metaphysical structures to be labelled as Advaita

as long as they contain the statement that the structures are

ultimately false and that only the Substratum is true.

 

No, the common interpretation doesn’t make sense. I mean, if you see

a man recoiling from a rope, what would you tell him? Any sane, well-

meaning, person would say: "Hey, look, it is not a snake. It is only

a rope." It would be very strange if one were to tell him: "It is a

snake," and, after a dramatic pause, to say: "But look, it is not a

snake, it is really a rope that you see as a snake." I would think

that such a person requires his sanity to be checked. No, there is a

greater import to what Shankara is saying than what is commonly

understood.

 

Let us look at Shankara's statement in the context of anirvacaniya

and adhyaropapavada as explained above. Creation is false because the

world is eternally existent in Brahman. What is denied in denying

creation is the attribution of time as being applicable to the world,

and not the world itself. The world exists eternally in Brahman. When

the upadhis of the world are negated, the falsities of duality and

limitedness are negated, and the world itself is left affirmed.

Negation of duality makes the world non-different from Brahman.

Negation of limitedness makes Brahman grow larger than the negated

thing because the thing as it exists in Brahman is not limited to the

vishesha that is seen. So, with each negation, Brahman grows greater,

as it were, and when the entirety of creation, including the three

worlds, have been successively negated, Brahman remains growing

greater still than all these. That is Its Swaroopa Lakshana, growing

greater than anything that can be seen or conceived, and it is the

attributes of Brahman that, as tatastha lakshanas, lead to It. Does

not Shankara say that creation is affirmed (by Sruti) so that it may

be denied only to establish the Absolute Infinitude of Brahman? And

the etymology of the word 'Brahman' is preserved fully in this

interpretation. When seen in the context of adhyaropapavada as

explained above, Shankara's statement fits seamlessly into the

darshana of Advaita. Brahman is Consciousness to be sure, but He is

to be known as Purnam only, as Being so Great that He stretches

farther than the farthest horizons to which perception and conception

can go.

 

Aum Purnamidah Purnam idam Purnath

Purnam udachyate Purnasya purnam adaya

Purnam eyvava sheshate

Aum Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!

 

 

Pranams,

Chittaranjan

[Guest guest]

--- Chittaranjan Naik <chittaranjan_naik wrote:

> Namaste to all Advaitins,

>

> Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah

>

> Om Namah Shivaya

> Om Mata Annapurna

>

>

> INTRODUCTION

>

> There are three doctrinal tenets that are central to the darshana of

> Advaita. They are:

>

> 1. The doctrine that words point to universals (samanya)

> 2. The doctrine that the perceived world is inexplicable

> (anirvacaniya)

> 3. The doctrine that the way to the truth is dialectic (adhyaropa and

> apavada).

.........

 

Chittaranjanji

 

Beautiful.

 

I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful post. Thanks for putting

your thoughts in the language that I can also appreciate.

 

I can see your point little more clearly.

 

My SaashhTaanga PraNaams to you.

 

Hari OM!

Sadananda

[Guest guest]

Namaste Chittaranjan-ji!

 

Now it's up to us to cross the bridge and burn it for its non-existence...

 

Also, i would like to add that i am reading the book Sunder-ji recommended:

"Maha Yoga or Upanishadic Lore, by 'WHO' (Sri Laxman Sharma)"

http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/downloads/maha_yoga.pdf (little advertising

here) and i am finding it excellent... It has become clear to me now that

the danger in regarding the world to be "unreal" from the "wrong

perspective", would be that one could easily altogether miss the rope by

dismissing the imaginary snake...

 

PS: It was all worth the wait...

 

My warmest regards to all...

 

 

 

 

 

 

_____

doce lar. Faça do sua homepage.

http://br./homepageset.html

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Sadanandaji,

 

advaitin, kuntimaddi sadananda

<kuntimaddisada> wrote:

> Chittaranjanji

> Beautiful.

> I cannot thank you enough for this beautiful post.

> Thanks for putting your thoughts in the language

> that I can also appreciate.

> I can see your point little more clearly.

 

Sir, these words mean so much to me coming from you. I would also like

to tell you a little secret - actually i'm indebted to you for what i

wrote. It was while reading your notes in the files section that i came

to some systematic understanding of the snake-rope analogy and its

various nuances. I shall always remain indebted to you fot it. And Sri

Nairji once sent me a beautiful article on Purnamidah which remains in

my heart. Prof VK-ji corrected my mistaken notions of tatastha lakshana

and swaroopa lakshana. And Bhaskar Prabhuji led me to adhyaropa and

apavada in Sri Shankaracharya's Gita bhashya which turned out to be an

eye-opener. And there are so many others who taught me in various ways.

This group has been an ashram for me where i've learnt so much, for

which i would like to say simply "Thank you".

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Felipe" <fcrema> wrote:

>

> It has become clear to me now that

> the danger in regarding the world to be "unreal" from the "wrong

> perspective", would be that one could easily altogether miss the

rope by

> dismissing the imaginary snake...

 

Namaste Felipe-ji,

 

Ref. Post #30058

 

The following article may be relevant to this insightful

comment.

 

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/unverse39.shtml

 

Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham verse 39

 

"Keep advaita within the Heart. Do not ever carry it into action.

Even if you apply it to all the three worlds, O son, it is not to be

applied to the Guru."

 

 

Regards,

 

Sunder