Originally Posted by
anucarh
Namaste,
"Infinite in size" would indeed be incorrect, because it suggests that infinity is a specific quantity and that Brahman has a specific size in that amount, whereas Brahman is without any size, as you say, or limit of any kind. However, Śrī Ādi Śaṅkarācārya agrees with the Taittirīya Upaniṣad that Brahman is ananta, that is without any limit, boundless, infinite.
Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1.1 tells us "The knower of Brahman attains the highest: Here is a verse uttering that very fact: 'Brahman is truth, knowledge, and infinite...' [satyaṁ j�ānam anantam]." In his commentary on this verse, Śrī Ādi Śaṅkarācārya writes, "The sentence satyaṁ j�ānam anantam brahma--Brahman is truth, knowledge, infinite--is meant as a definition of Brahman. For the three words beginning with satya are meant to distinguish Brahman...Thus indeed does a thing become known when it is differentiated from others..." By others, he means all others: "a definition marks it out from everything else," he says.
These three words distinguish Brahman from the things of māyā, which is a power that inheres in Brahman (parameśa śakti) and a beginningless realm of appearance, wherein time, causality, change, multiplicity, perceivers and perceived objects are experienced, the level of vyāvahārika-satya or relative truth. The words distinguish Brahman following the method of Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.3.6: neti, neti, "not-this, not-this." The meaning of satyaṁ j�ānam anantam for Śrī Ādi Śaṅkarācārya is that nirguṇa ("without qualities") Brahman does not change ("a thing is said to be satya, true, when it does not change the nature that is ascertained to be its own...a mutable thing is unreal..."), is a consciousness with neither an agent (because a knowing agent or perceiver entails change and is limited by what is knowable and what is known) nor an object perceived, and is "not separated from anything" nor is it "delimited" by anything. The Infinite, he says, is that in which there is awareness of nothing else, quoting Chāndogya Upaniṣad 7.24.1. At the level of pāramārthika-satya, absolute or ultimate truth, where there are no levels to be distinguished, even thought is not present.
I hope this is helpful.
praṇām
Bookmarks