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brahman
26 November 2013, 06:16 AM
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On the contrary to the present practice of reading the brain-teasing materials on spiritual education, it was direct listening to ‘the word of the guru’, as the only means to attain the state of supreme Happiness, is widely portrayed in our ancient scriptures; and, the discrimination between these two different methods, however much the theologians or the new-age religionists may deny it in their pride, is evidently open even to the public view.



Satyakāma had to listen to his guru Gautama

Naciketas had to listen to Lord Yama

Śvetaketu had to listen to his father Uddālaka

Arjuna had to listen to his friend-guru Śrī. Kṛṣṇa


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Dear Members,


How Śaṅkara does transcend the difficulty of putting the Real nature of the Absolute-Substance in words can be summarised in a manner, though perplexingly, described below; this privilege is taken only if we are permitted not to respond to further add-ons, if at all any, to this single beaded thread.


Taking the text, satyam jñānam anantam brahma (Brahman, the Absolute, is Reality, Knowledge and Infinity) of Brahmānanda Valli of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, Śaṅkara first makes it clear that these attributes have to be treated as 'indirectly' applicable and not 'directly'.

The latter, which would be literal, treating the words as they are understood ordinarily, he distinguishes as vāchyārtha; while the former, which is based on analogy, and has the notion of the universal and unique genus of the Absolute to reveal, he calls lakṣaṇārtha, where the attribute refers backward to help us to see the unique nature of the Absolute; distinguishing it negatively from any other specified object in the universe. In his own words in his Bhāṣya, we read:



"Brahman is Reality, Knowledge and Infinity" is a sentence which indirectly distinguishes the Absolute Brahman. Reality and others are verily three terms qualifying Brahman, which is the qualified.


(If it be said) that because of being specified by attributes indirectly, they refer (positively) to the qualified aspects, there is no such defect. Why? Because the attributes give primacy to the indirectly qualified (subject), rather than giving primacy to the attributes themselves. (If it be asked) where there is the specification as between sign and thing signified, quality and thing qualified, we say it is to distinguish between objects of the same genus that attributes are used; but the indirectly qualified (subject) however, is as in the definition of space as that which gives its room to every other thing, to be distinguished from everything else in the universe. It is (this kind of) indirect meaning that has to be given (to the text in question)"


Answering further in the same commentary to the objection whether by applying the negative method of 'not this, not this', (neti-neti) the Absolute would not itself vanish into nothing-ness, Śaṅkara relies again on a semantic argument, and says that the words "Reality" etc., would not have any function at all if they referred to nothing. Since grammatically they are meant to have a function in the scriptures, they must at least specify the subject, Brahman, by excluding negatively those which are in conflict with the attribute mentioned, thus delimiting the function of each attribute such as Reality etc.

Śaṅkara 's own sentence on this last point of saving the notion of the Absolute from falling into the nothingness (śūnya) of the Buddhist reads:



"'Meaning of Reality etc' in effect, however, would (still) delimit the meaning of Brahman, the qualified, by excluding those attributes whose function would be in conflict with what is proper to it."


The word-content of the Absolute is finally underlined by Śaṅkara in the third part of the same comment, as follows:



"The word Brahman, by its proper meaning, has force of 'signification'". (brahma Śabdo' pi svarthena arthavān eva).


Existence, Subsistence and Value thus inhere in the notion of the Absolute, giving it content and significant value all together and each by each, negatively and indirectly, by analogy.

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These discussions above have necessarily to remain complex and subtle at present. We have to bring in the structure of thought schematically in order to simplify and clarify the position here.

Perhaps, in an unconvetional manner only, if at all possible, we shall be able to tackle the seeming difficulty pertaining to the subtlety at the core of 'Word Wisdom'. Love:)