I guess that was the question I was asking earlier in this thread.
I like @ameyAtmA 's way of looking at it above. Nirguna means beyond the gunas. Brahman can have a creative aspect that is beyond the gunas and uses the gunas in its creative aspect.
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So-called 'Brahman' that has no gunas, is that even possible?
- Thread starter Viraja
- Start date
I like @ameyAtmA 's way of looking at it above. Nirguna means beyond the gunas. Brahman can have a creative aspect that is beyond the gunas and uses the gunas in its creative aspect.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
The speaker is a Sri Vaishnava who follows Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita doctrine. They reject the Advaita concept of Nirguna Brahman as a false idea.
In their system, Narayana (Vishnu) has an uncountable number of auspicious gunas and is the supreme entity. This would be Saguna Brahman in Advaita.
Viraja
Jaya Jagannatha!
That is correct, ji. I am aware that Velukkudi Krishnan is vishishtadvaiti. Nevertheless posed this question because his logic appealed to me. Many thanks.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
Of the three systems (Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita), modern scholarship commonly considers Vishishtadvaita to be the closest to the traditional interpretation (by authors such as Upavarsha and others who lived before Shankara) of the Upanishads and the Brahma sutras.
Viraja
Jaya Jagannatha!
Interestingly, as a layman to shastras, all 3 systems appealed to me. I believe, even to this day, that there is truth in all of them, just that they differ owing to some conditions being applied to them.
For example, ACC. to vishishtadvaita, jeevatma is always different from paramatma (cannot merge, etc). Whereas advaita moksha means complete oneness with god.
The condition to apply may be 'this kalpa'. That is, vishishtadvaita is correct but perhaps in a different kalpa altogether the jeevan might actually become one with the brahmam.
I am not claiming this example is correct, for I know nothing as a self-declared layman, but just exclaiming whether special conditions are to be applied, when interpreting the 3 systems respectively.
Thanks for your reply.
Viraja
Jaya Jagannatha!
Thanks for this wonderful description, ameyatma ji.
Namaste @George-ananda , @Viraja (and @The Crimson Universe has brought this up in the past)
One very important point that we all know, that directly answers this Advaita question, is this :
Bramh' is NOT the DOER of anything!
Bramh' has a nature. Nature = nisarga , prakRuti.. SwabhAv = its own bhAv, temperament, makeup
So Bramh' HAS prakRutI and swabhAva - but Bramh' IS NOT the prakRuti and swabhAv.
This is why each sentient being has a specific makeup, temperament, ayurvedic vata-pitta-kapha composition , AND a swabhAva -- because they inherited it fron Bramh', the innermost intrinsic core of every being (amah AtmA guDAkesha... BG 10.20)
However, what we think of a child's swabhAva of this life, is not their mooLa swabhAva.
Anyhow, I am digressing a bit.
Since Bramh' is not the doer and never takes the doership - kartAbhAv upon Him/Her/Itself. the universe, its phenomena, and apparent transformations, are all "happening", certainly. but they are Bramh's natural way to be. They are Bramh's prakRuti (please note the apostrophe s)
No matter what happens, it is happening within the subtlest and most superior of Bramh's mooLa prakrUti and YogamAya, down to jaDa or gross prakRuti.
Brahm' did not do it. It is His intrinsic way of existence. SacchidAnanda.
--------------
Suppose you develop a headache. all of a sudden, and work delegated to you cannot be done try as you might.
You are not the headache. You are not the head either.
You HAVE a head
Therefore you HAVE a headache.
Similarly, Universe - call it an appearance, a continuous series of very complex down to simple nested phenomena, is Bramh's NATURE. SwabhAv and prakRuti/
What SanAtan Dharma grantha and shAstra are trying to say -- is that suffering comes from falsely identifying oneSelf with one's prakRuti and swabhAva - the apostrophe S.
The degree to which one is able to disconnect from the doership of prakRuti, to that extend they can embrace the different frameworks provided to us.
Like Virajaji says , they all have truth.
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Bhagavad Geeta is sufficient to put aside the notions such as
a) NirguNa versus SaguNa Bramh' (ParamAtmA is always nirguNa, but guNa are in His nature - mahad-Bramh' - and the lecture in OP is implying this) ,
b) the previously nonexistent world comes into being... (nothing comes into being, it is all nature of ParamAtmA)
c) Bh. Geeta is a VaishNav text (it is Bramh telling you the truth directly and here we are going all over town searching for answers) ,
d) VishishTAdvaita = Dvaita, jivatma eternally separate (far from truth. A scholar said 95% think VA is Dvaita. It is not.)
Since we cannot bring all of chapters 2,5,7,13,14,15,18... here,
BG 14.4 sarvayonishu kaunteya mUrtayah: sambhavanti yah: |
tAsAM Bramh' mahadyonirahaM beejapradah: pitA ||
O Arjuna, I am the seed sowing Father, and this vastness, mahad-Bramh', [My] mooLa PrakRuti, Nature, is the Mother of all the varieties of living beings that are born and take a form.
Notice how the context changes. Mahad-Bramh' here means the primordial vastness - mooLa prakRuti. They Who is ahaM in this verse? ParamAtmA.
BG 14.19 NAnyaM guNebhyah: kartAraM yadA drashTAnupashyati |
guNebhyashcha paraM vetti madbhAvm so adhigacchati ||
When the witness/seer (drashTA) realizes/understands/sees that there is no doer other than the 3 modes of nature (guNa), and knowns and understands Me, Who completely transcends the 3 modes of [material] nature, and is situated far beyond them, in principle, at that point, that One attains My state (madbhAvaM -- My bhAv, swarUpa).
BG 14.22 - 26 paraphrased
Shri BhagavAn uvAcha ( The Supreme Lord said)
--One who is continuously situated in the Self (AtmabhAv - AtmasaMstuti), equanimous, undisturbed come what may : happiness or sorrow, honor or insult, heat or cold, favorable or unfavorable events, criticism or praise, getting laughed at and made fun of, or welcomed with pomp,
--and One who looks at mud/soil, stone, gold as the same (of the same value),
*AND*
--**Who is not in the consciousness of being the DOER , by giving up the resolve "I am going to DO this now" (sarvArambha-parityAgI) ,
is said to have transcended the 3 modes of nature, is beyond the guNas. (guNAteeta)/
BG 14.27 BramhaNo hi pratishThA aham amRutasyAvyayasya cha |
shAshwatasya cha dharmasya sukhaikAntikasya cha ||
[...This is because] I (ParamAtmA) am the foundation of this great vast nature of existence (**in this context of chapter 14, Shri KRshNa is using Bramh' to refer to the Mahad-Bramh' - the promordial vastness, mooLa prakRuti, whereas in the context of chapter 13, He shows the all-pervading nature of Him, ParamAtmA in this vastness)...
of the eternal Dharma (nature of Being), and one-pointed peace and happiness.
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That is still a point I wrestle with. To quote Wikipedia on the definition of Maya:
In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, māyā, "appearance",[7] is "the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real."[8] In this nondualist school, māyā at the individual level appears as the lack of knowledge (avidhya) of the real Self, Atman-Brahman, mistakingly identifying with the body-mind complex and its entanglements.
'the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion' means to me that Brahman is the ULTIMATE DOER. Brahman is the doer of Maya. One can conceive of Brahman existing alone as being-awareness-bliss (sat-cit-ananda) with no action/doing of the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion. But Brahman does this act.
I think the language like in this quote has done some small amount of disservice over years. "There is no world, it is an illusion" can be understood from a certain level of understanding, but throwing it at first-time readers, for instance, will not help.
The truth can be expressed differently and Bhagavad Geeta expresses it well. (If one can put aside notions that BG is for a specific audience only)
In the Bhagavad Geeta, KRushNa clearly says -- I am not the doer, prakRuti is. (The shlokas I quoted in post #29, plus BG Chapter 5 )
So, "A flower blooms" "A child grows tall"
The "I" of the child did not do anything. Nature made him/her tall.
You may say his mother convinced him to drink milk everyday. The calcium, protein etc. gave him strong muscles and the child also grew tall.
We cannot say that the child made itself taller. PrakRuti made the child's body taller.
Also, 2 kids drinking milk will not make both tall equally fast.
Similarly, I request you to put aside this Advaita-Vedanta-induced idea that there is no world at all.
The world is not ParamAtmA. ParamAtmA is beyond the world. World is what appears to us because of the NATURE of ParamAtmA , which BG chapter 14 calls Mahat Bramh' (The primordial vastness - mooLa prakRuti).
ParamAtmA is not affected by the world. Untouched like a lotus leaf in the muddy swampy water.
KRushNa says, not only am I like this, untouched, My jnAni bhakta are also like this.
Again, KRushNa explains this in at least 2 shlokas in the Geeta
BG 9 - behold My mystic oppulence! They are all in Me but I am not in them.
What does this mean? The prakruti is the nature of the child.
Genetics is prakruti. The child will grow tall if parents are tall.
The child is simply happy being him/herself. Not participating in growing taller.
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In conclusion, ParamAtmA is not creating any illusion intentionally or on purpose. It is our understanding and perspective standing on the ground, that "rivers are formed" , "A star died" etc.
Really these are just natural phenomena that are naturally occurring in Bramh'-ParamAtmA (including creatures coming and going), but ParamAtmA is untouched by it.
We are standing on the ground, we have neither the helicopter/eagle view nor perspective, nor a kaleidoscopic view hence it appears to us as - one entity was destroyed, another was formed. They are all Mahat Bramh's energy going from one form to another, molecules dismantle and form again.
Do you ask the blood in your arteries to run in a specific direction?
Everything is according to the nature, science, swabhAv and hence plan.
The plan appears because there are laws.
Now someone may say "Ah! laws! that breaks advaita"
No, Bramh'-ParamAtmA has a NATURE, and NATURE of Bramh' follows certain laws.
Again, neither the laws not the nature ARE Bramh (ParamAtmA). They BELONG TO ParamAtmA.
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Well even using the Gita, how is 'seed sowing' not doing?
Great question. It is a perspective.
It is not ParamAtmA doing anything diliberately, it is more of mooLa prakRuti of ParamAtmA surrounding its sentience with material transformations - again because that is its natural way to BE, not DO.
This is why ParamAtmA is omnipresent and automatically pervades everything that appears to us.
Advaita calls them appearances or illusions because the forms are not eternal. A flower blooms in the day and withers the same night. Thus advaita calls the flower an illusion.
The inner-most "I" of the flower is ParamAtmA!
BG 10.20 I am the Self, O conqueror of sleep (GuDAkesha = Arjun), of, at, sheltering and in all entites (sarva bhUtAshaya shtita). I am their beginning, middle and their end.
I know this brings to the topic of the Will of ParamAtmA, etc.
I am on the path of jnAna + bhakti. I will say ParamAtmA has a will. Again it is a perspective.
ParamAtmA in the purest core innermost form, is free of having to will, and this is delegated naturally to His closest primordial mooLa prakRuti and YogamAyA.
When sleepy the child sleeps. Similarly, when the universe reaches a certain stage of chaos and disorder, it is time for pralay.
Apply this concept of "pralay" at the 4 levels explained in Shrimad Bhagvat purAN - (i) Atyantik - individual level (ii) prAkrutic - cosmic level (iii) naimittik - at the Kalpa level (iv) Nitya - eternally naturally occuring flux in the thermodynamics of existence.
A clue: BhagavAn VishNu never decides to take avatAr. The devas headed by BramhAA, Indra.... go and make requests and "narrate" how the wicked are troubling the beings. BhagavAn VishNu says "OK"
This is not doer-ship on behalf of His innermost core. It is YogamAyA assisted by His sentience, sat, chit, Ananda.
However, the innermost core remains the same sacchidAnanda, unchanged, stoic. Achyutam Keshavam.
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Can not paramatma just exist in sat-cit-ananda without deliberately or even undeliberately sowing seeds and forming prakriti?
It gets back to me thinking Brahman has a creative aspect and the doer of Maya. Creative art being the play/drama of the universe is a creative doing.
He is not forming prakRuti. PrakRuti is His Nature. Is the nature of the nature to appear, form and dismantle. This cannot happen without the backdrop of the Sat Chit.
Is it creation or an occurrence?
Do you create blood? Or do blood cells get created in your body?
This is what I was calling the potential of Bramh' .
The potential can be because of the NATURE of Bramh' -- same example of a child growing tall.
The sacchidAnanda does not attribute doership to Him/Her/Itself as a result of this natural tendency that is all.
Just as you would not attribute doership to the child for growing tall or for cells being generated. The child did not create the cells.
I do not like to lean on the advaita vedanta language for this reason. The kartA versus dRusTA bhAv of the Bhagavad Geeta is a better answer, and Bhagavad Geeta never denies the creative aspect.
Today's posts were just to bring to the thread this DOERSHIP factor versus naturally occurring factor. The creativity and rules and laws are all there, embedded in the super-intelligent YogamAyA-mooLa prakRuti of BhagavAn-ParamAtmA-Bramh', but without deterring the steady consciousness of SacchidAnanda. It is all happening because the potential is there.
Where is all this leading to? AhaMkAr , ego.
Bramh' never identifies itself as a smaller object and say this is Me. "I", and "I did this" because that would imply ahaMkAr which He does not have.
The moment the Oneness is broken by drawing a boundary and saying "This is Me. I did this" , that is giving rise to ahaMkAR - ego , which is a false perspective.
Just imagine, NArAyaN taught Lord BramhAA to never be in the consciousness of "I, BramhAA created this Universe" , because even that does not belong to a defined boundary called BramhAA.
(Chatuhshloki Bhagvat - SB 2.2) That is reducing the "I" to a limited entity and giving rise to ahaMkAr. Even BramhAA is not to take credit for creating Universe - BramhAnDa, because He does not own the mooLa avyakta akshara, that simply IS.
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Right, my point that to act or not act or how to act on potential is doing (doership).
Now, that part makes sense with me. Using my play/drama creative analogy, Brahman is the playwright and not a smaller object within the play.
Now I'm a little unclear again. There is something 'mooLa avyakta' that is not Brahman or owned by Brahman? That does not fit the basic definition of Brahman then.
Not owned by Lord BramhAAA, in order to claim credit. Definitely belongs to Bramh' as its nature.
BramhAA (BramhaDev of the trinity) not Bramh'. Anyhow you can ignore the Chatuh-shloki BhAgvat example.
As most of my understanding comes from Advaita Vedanta philosophy I’m always thinking Brahman not ‘Brahma’ as in the Hindu trinity.
Creation? Is there such action?
Universe? Is there such thing?
Maya? Is there such entity/power?
Nope. As Vivekananda says, "Brahman IS, and everything is not". Never a thing/Universe appeared/arise, just Brahman. Never there is a thing called Maya, just Brahman.
Never Rope appears as Snake, just Rope. If one misconceives Rope as Snake, it's not that Rope appears as Snake, but Rope is misunderstood. Rope IS, no other, none appeared upon it.
No Maya. No Creation. No Universe. No Play.
Just Brahman.
Neither Gunas are there (Saguna Brahman), nor Nirguna (Attribute less Brahman).
Just Brahman.
This is what I feel Upanishads says.
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In our relative reality there is Maya so I want to understand why it exists in our relative reality.
I am already clear that Brahman is the only Absolute reality.
If there is a relative reality, then one can understand. it's like understanding a Snake (it's birth-colour-form-behaviour-etc), which is not there. Also is there an Absolute Reality?
Just Brahman. Neither Relative nor Absolute Reality.