Guest guest Posted June 12, 2009 Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 namaskAraH, I was debating the issue of nirguNa/nirvisheSha with someone and thought of sending this post to the group, primarily as a sort of manana exercise so that one may learn from the comments of various list members. Any philosophy is meaningful only so long as it accommodates anubhava, in the sense that it must not be opposed to anubhava. Therefore, when we use terms such as nirguNa or nirvisheSha, the understanding must be such that it is not opposed to the world of experience but only sublates the latter. In other words, nirguNa must not be opposed to the presence of guNa-s. If there is such an opposition, nirguNa would become the dualistic opposite of saguNa - when saguNa comes, nirguNa goes and vice-versa. Where there is guNa, there would be no nirguNa and vice-versa. Thus, being limited by the presence of guNa-s, it would effectively become a kind of saguNa in its own right - an oxymoron. Therefore, nirguNa in the vedAntic sense implies freedom from (or transcendence of) guNa-s rather than absence of guNa-s. nirguNa implies " guNa mukta " rather than " guNa rahita " - the freedom from guNa-s must necessarily include the freedom to take on any and all guNa-s. Another way to understand this is that absence of a particular guNa implies the presence of its dualistic opposite. True freedom from guNa-s requires freedom from both the opposing guNa-s, which effectively implies the freedom to **include** both the opposing guNa-s. Only such a nirguNa can imply true non-duality. Similarly, one may consider the usage of the word non-duality or advaita. advaita is not opposed to dvaita, but inheres in and through dvaita. If advaita were opposed to dvaita, then dvaita would have to go for advaita to come and vice-versa, leading to a duality of dvaita & advaita. To understand advaita, one must recognize that dvaita itself includes the entire field of opposites, such as tall/short, coloured/colourless, known/unknown, empirical being/non-being, etc. To make advaita itself an opposite to dvaita would (as mentioned above) lead to a duality of dvaita and advaita and make jIvanmukti impossible. Therefore, we say that the tree, the rock and the person are all brahman, but (nirguNa) brahman is not specifically any of these while simultaneously being all of these. This is because while brahman is free from tree-ness, rock-ness and person-ness, etc it is also simultaneously free from non-tree-ness, non-rock-ness, non-person-ness.and so on. Comments invited from the list vidvAn-s. -- santoá¹£aḥ paramo lÄbhaḥ satsaá¹…gaḥ paramÄ gatiḥ I vicÄraḥ paramaá¹ jñÄnaá¹ Å›amo hi paramaá¹ sukham II - Yoga VÄsiá¹£á¹ha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2009 Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 Shree Ramesh - PraNAms Without opening extensive debate on the nature of mukta, the discussion to the issue you have raised is addressed in the 14th Chapter. what you said is rigtht. Shree Ram Chandran has just posted the slokas related to satva, rajas, tamo guNas of the prakRiti. Later in the chapter, Krishna discusses the jiivanmukta who that he realizes that he has nothing to do with gunas as they belong to prakRiti and he as purusha is free from all GuNas all the time. Hence prakRiti will have their guNas but he does identify himself with the guNas of the prakRiti. Hence He realizes that he is advaita in spite of prakRiti having its guNas since they are mithyaa or not real. It is not absence of guNas but disowning the guNas by disowning identification with prakRiti and recognizing that prakRiti is maayaa or mithyaa only. Those slokas about jiivanmukta and guNas of the prakRiti will be coming soon in Giita posts. Hari Om! Sadananda --- On Fri, 6/12/09, Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy wrote: In other words, nirguNa must not be opposed to the presence of guNa-s. If there is such an opposition, nirguNa would become the dualistic opposite of saguNa - when saguNa comes, nirguNa goes and vice-versa. Where there is guNa, there would be no nirguNa and vice-versa. Thus, being limited by the presence of guNa-s, it would effectively become a kind of saguNa in its own right - an oxymoron. Therefore, nirguNa in the vedAntic sense implies freedom from (or transcendence of) guNa-s rather than absence of guNa-s. nirguNa implies " guNa mukta " rather than " guNa rahita " - the freedom from guNa-s must necessarily include the freedom to take on any and all guNa-s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 12, 2009 Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 advaitin , Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy wrote: Namaste Ramesh-ji and followers of this thread, I would like to know from where (which primary texts) does the term 'nirvisheSha brahman' come from? What is the basis for the dvaitins to (coin that term, if they have done so and) use it for explaining what advaitins call as 'nirguNa brahman'? praNAms Ramakrishna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 13, 2009 Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 Dear Ramesh-ji, I don’t think I qualify as a ‘vidvan’ (would anyone admit to this?) but I thought this a very astute observation and one worthy of using in the ‘Definition of Terms’ section of the list and my website if you are amenable. I entirely agree – Sada-ji frequently uses the phrase ‘non-duality *in spite of* duality’, signifying that the dualistic appearance continues post-realization. Personally, I always translate nir as ‘beyond’ rather than as in any way a negation. Best wishes, Dennis advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf Of Ramesh Krishnamurthy Friday, June 12, 2009 4:02 PM advaitin nirguNa / nirvisheSha << In other words, nirguNa must not be opposed to the presence of guNa-s. If there is such an opposition, nirguNa would become the dualistic opposite of saguNa - when saguNa comes, nirguNa goes and vice-versa. Where there is guNa, there would be no nirguNa and vice-versa. Thus, being limited by the presence of guNa-s, it would effectively become a kind of saguNa in its own right - an oxymoron. >> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 14, 2009 Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Dear Dennisji, I have heard Sw. Dayananda-ji advising his audience to studiously avoid using adjectives in relation to Brahman. The problem is that we are in the incurable habit of referring to Brahman as nirguNa Brahman, nirvisheSha Brahman etc. If we take nirguNa as a noun, then it ceases to be an antonym and becomes a synonym for Brahman, like sat, cit and Ananda. This applies to nirvisheSha and all the other adjectives with which we tend to qualify Brahman. nirgUna and nirvisheSha thus would mean that which seems to appear as pairs of opposites in duality (with and without qualities and attributes) and pervades them. In other words, these terms point at the substantive of duality ridden with pairing and polarization. There are just too many names for Mother LalitAmbika in Her sahasranAmAvali beginning with 'nir' appearing in a continuous sequence. It is sheer ecstasy to chant those well-rhymed names. They are nouns and not adjectives. To me, She is the Consciousness of Advaita. Best regards. Madathil Nair - a non-vidvAn ________________ advaitin , " Dennis Waite " <dwaite wrote: > > Dear Ramesh-ji, > > > > I don’t think I qualify as a ‘vidvan’ (would anyone admit to this?) but I thought this a very astute observation and one worthy of using in the ‘Definition of Terms’ section of the list and my website if you are amenable. I entirely agree †" Sada-ji frequently uses the phrase ‘non-duality *in spite of* duality’, signifying that the dualistic appearance continues post-realization. Personally, I always translate nir as ‘beyond’ rather than as in any way a negation. > > > > Best wishes, > > Dennis > > > > advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf Of Ramesh Krishnamurthy > Friday, June 12, 2009 4:02 PM > advaitin > nirguNa / nirvisheSha > > > > << > > In other words, nirguNa must not be opposed to the presence of guNa-s. > If there is such an opposition, nirguNa would become the dualistic > opposite of saguNa - when saguNa comes, nirguNa goes and vice-versa. > Where there is guNa, there would be no nirguNa and vice-versa. Thus, > being limited by the presence of guNa-s, it would effectively become a > kind of saguNa in its own right - an oxymoron. > > >> > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 14, 2009 Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Dear Nair-ji, Very fair point and I do agree. Again, I would tend to use a word such as nirguNa only to differentiate clearly from saguNa in a context where there might be confusion. To avoid the danger that you point out, this might be a good general rule. In fact, Shankara often just uses the term brahman even when he is actually talking about saguNa Ishvara. Many might find this even more confusing, though! Best wishes, Dennis advaitin [advaitin ] On Behalf Of Madathil Rajendran Nair Sunday, June 14, 2009 7:57 AM advaitin Re: nirguNa / nirvisheSha Dear Dennisji, I have heard Sw. Dayananda-ji advising his audience to studiously avoid using adjectives in relation to Brahman. The problem is that we are in the incurable habit of referring to Brahman as nirguNa Brahman, nirvisheSha Brahman etc. If we take nirguNa as a noun, then it ceases to be an antonym and becomes a synonym for Brahman, like sat, cit and Ananda. This applies to nirvisheSha and all the other adjectives with which we tend to qualify Brahman. nirgUna and nirvisheSha thus would mean that which seems to appear as pairs of opposites in duality (with and without qualities and attributes) and pervades them. In other words, these terms point at the substantive of duality ridden with pairing and polarization. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 14, 2009 Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Nairji - PraNAms Purtranmji also raised somewhat similar point related to positive aspect of Brahman rather than just neti neti. In the analysis of satyam jnaanam and anantam, Shankara in his bhaaShya raises, by way of objection, a question: Are they adjectives, visheShaNas or are they laxaNas. Hence an exhaustive description is provided on which subsequent commentators provided additional discussion. The summary of the discussion as I understand is this: The guNa as it translated as adjective applies to qualify or to differentiate a vyakti or individual member from its jaati. Ex. blue lotus where blue is adjective to qualify or differentiate it from red, yellow, green lotuses. If there are no other colored lotuses available other than blue then qualifying as blue lotus in redundant. Hence the question raised is, are satyam, jnaanam and anatam brahman - which have smaanaadhikaraNa (equal emphasis in qualifying Brahman) are the qualifiers since there is no jaati for Brahman - that is, there is no other Brahman which is not satyam, not jnaanam and not anantam to distinguish it from. Shankara says they are laxanAs not visheShaNas that distinguish it from that which is not Brahman. That real or satyam is distinguishing laxaNa for Brahman to differentiate that which is not real. Similarly the other laxaNas. They are in away positive definitions that which cannot be defined yet need to be defined since Vedanta says one has to know Brahman - it is a quote unquote -an object of knowledge- for those who do not know. tat vijnaasaswa - one has to enquire. How can I enquire nirviSha?, by negating all those which have visheshya-visheShaNa sambandha - qualifier-qualified relationships. For purpose of inquiry those laxaNas required to differentiate the mithyaa vastu which is currently taken as real. Hence they are means of communicating that which cannot be communicated. The same goes to the word advaita too, since dvaita is being experienced. In the paaramaarthika - no word can be valid - yato vaacho nivartante apraapya manasaa saha - the words and the mind return back. Shankara provides then they are swaruupa laxaNas not visheShaNas, which are just adjectives. They are necessary and sufficient requirements to - differentiate from non-Brahman. This is required for upadesha or for teaching but will drop out in the undersanding of Brahmna which is nirguNa/nirvisheSha. Hari Om! Sadananda --- On Sun, 6/14/09, Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair wrote: If we take nirguNa as a noun, then it ceases to be an antonym and becomes a synonym for Brahman, like sat, cit and Ananda. This applies to nirvisheSha and all the other adjectives with which we tend to qualify Brahman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 15, 2009 Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 ks ji : Thank you for elucidating 'brahman'.Three cheers for this post,hip hip hurray suresh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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