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saidevo
30 July 2007, 11:56 AM
Namaste.

What is the abstract relationship between the "I" and the "This" in the Vedantic assertion aham-etat-na "I-this-not-am", which is the root of Vedanta? How does this relationship result in Creation, Destruction, Time, Space, Maya and Jivas?

Bhagavan Das, a great Hindu scholar who founded the Benaras Hindu University, answers these questions in fourteen aphorisms that he had developed in the Preface to his book The Pranava Vada. Together they stand as a quick reference to the concepts of the Vedanta.

Here is the set of 14 philosophical aphorisms developed by Bhagavan Das:

The Heart of the Vedanta

1. aham-etat-na "I-this-not-am" is the Motionless, Timeless, Spaceless, Perfect, Eternal, Supreme Brahman, known otherwise as Paramatma.

2. The "I" sheathed in the totality of the "This" and possessing the knowledge "I am not This" is Purusha, Pratyag-Atma, Ishvara.

3. The opposition to the unity of the "I", the "This" is "many" and hence atomic. This same "This", endowed with being by the affirmation "I (am) This", and deprived of existence by the denial "(I am) This not", hence existent as well as non-existentent, is the (ever becoming, ever changing) endlessly atomic Mulaprakrti--also named Pradhana, Avyakta, etc.

4. The "I" clothed in the sheath of an "atom" (i.e., a part of the "This", as distinguished from the totality thereof) and possessing the consciousness, "I (am) This" is the Jiva, called otherwise the Jivatma.

5. The placing before itself of the "This" by the "I" is Knowledge.

6. & 7. Whence the Knower and the Known.

8. The full knowledge "I-this-not-am" is Mahat, Buddhi, Brahma Vidya.

9. The part knowledge "I (am) This" is Avidya.

10. The complete identification implied in the "I (am) This", despite the utter opposition conveyed in "(I am) This not", results in the Mutual Assimilation (of the qualities, so to say, of the "I" and the "This").

11. The "This" by opposition to the unlimiteness of the "I" is "limited". Owing to the impossibility, in the limited This, of a contemporeity of the union (of the I and the This) contained in the "I (am) This" and of the separation involved in the "(I am) This not", results the (succession of the) movement (motion, or cyclic moving) of Assumption and Renunciation, Creation and Destruction, Hypothesis and Refutation (Manifestation and Absorption, Evolution and Involution, Life and Death, etc., etc.).

12. This succession (of the movement itself) is Time.

13. The possibility of the Existence of the "Many" in (and at) one Time is Space.

14. The Necessity of the movement involved in the sentence "I-this-not-am" is Maya, Shakti, Daivi-Prakruti, the Goddess of a hundred names and a thousand hymns.

The Sanskrit originals of his own aphorism can be read at http://www.makara.us/05ref/01books/pranavavada/pv_toc.htm (book)
http://www.makara.us/05ref/01books/pranavavada/pv_m1/06pv_1preface.pdf (preface)