Part 7 - Unknowability of Brahman and the Negative Method

It is indeed true that the magical element involved in the discharge of sacrificial duties lingered for a while in the symbolic worship of Brahman in which He was conceived almost as a deity. The minds of the Vedic poets so long accustomed to worship deities of visible manifestation could not easily dispense with the idea of seeking after a positive and definite content of Brahman. They tried some of the sublime powers of nature and also many symbols, but these could not render ultimate satisfaction. They did not know what the Brahman was like, for they had only a dim and dreamy vision of it in the deep craving of their souls which could not be translated into permanent terms. But this was enough to lead them on to the goal, for they could not be satisfied with anything short of the highest.

They found that by whatever means they tried to give a positive and definite content of the ultimate reality, the Brahman, they failed. Positive definitions were impossible. They could not point out what the Brahman was like in order to give an utterance to that which was unutterable, they could only say that it was not like aught that we find in experience.

Yājñavalkya said

“He the ātman is not this, nor this (neti neti). He is inconceivable, for he cannot be conceived, unchangeable, for he is not changed, untouched, for nothing touches him; he cannot suffer by a stroke of the sword, he cannot suffer any injury^[1].”

He is asat, non-being, for the being which Brahman is, is not to be understood as such being as is known to us by experience; yet he is being, for he alone is supremely real, for the universe subsists by him. We ourselves are but he, and yet we know not what he is.

Whatever we can experience, whatever we can express, is limited, but he is the unlimited, the basis of all.

“That which is inaudible, intangible, invisible, indestructible, which cannot be tasted, nor smelt, eternal, without beginning or end, greater than the great (mahat), the fixed. He who knows it is released from the jaws of death^[2].”

Space, time and causality do not appertain to him, for he at once forms their essence and transcends them. He is the infinite and the vast, yet the smallest of the small, at once here as there, there as here; no characterisation of him is possible, otherwise than by the denial to him of all empirical attributes, relations and definitions. He is independent of all limitations of space, time, and cause which rules all that is objectively presented, and therefore the empirical universe.

When Bāhva was questioned by Vaṣkali, he expounded the nature of Brahman to him by maintaining silence—“Teach me,” said Vaṣkali,

“most reverent sir, the nature of Brahman.”

Bāhva however remained silent. But when the question was put forth a second or third time he answered,

“I teach you indeed but you do not understand; the Atman is silence^[3].”

The way to indicate it is thus by neti neti , it is not this, it is not this. We cannot describe it by any positive content which is always limited by conceptual thought.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Brh. IV. 5. 15. Deussen, Max Muller and Rōer have all misinterpreted this passage; asito has been interpreted as an adjective or participle, though no evidence has ever been adduced; it is evidently the ablative of asi, a sword.

[2]:

Katha ill. 15.

[3]:

Śañkara on Brahmasūtra, III. 2. 17, and also Deussen, Philosophy of the Upaniṣads, p. 156.