Raja's Exocortex

Knowing God

Notes from Swami Sarvapriyananda's IIT-K talk.

Mounam Vyakhyanam

The highest definition of God is Mounam Vyakhyanam (Slience). But that does not make for an interesting lecture.

📌 Tao Te Ching Those who know do not speak Those who speak do not know Lao Tzu

The definition of God that is below this mahavakya is a single long proof of the existence of Brahman and foundation of Advaita Vedanta.

To enjoy this fully, three stages of understanding are required:

  1. Ability to repeat the proof verbatim, this is the basic minimum. Understanding or agreement is not required at this stage. Simply to repeat what the author says.
  2. Ability to intellectually comprehend and understand the proof.
  3. And finally the ability to fully realise and experience this as a living reality.

Taittiriya Upanishad encapsulates the whole of Vedanta in a single passage that reads Brahma-vid apnoti param, meaning the knower of Brahman attains the Highest.

The Knower of Brahman Attains the Highest

Brings up three questions:

  1. What is Brahman?
  2. What is to know Brahman?
  3. What is the highest?

What is Brahman?

The Sanskrit word Brahman literally means vast.

Taittiriya Upanishad continues to define Brahman as an entity or concept that is Satyam Jananam and Anantam.

Property Translation
Satyam Truth or Reality
Jananam Knowledge or Consciousness
Anantam Infinite or Limitless

What is Anantam?

The Sanskrit word Anantam is composed of na (opposite) and antam (end), or that which has no limit. Brahman is has no limit, it is limitless and infinite.

There are three kinds of limits:

  1. Limits in space (desa)
  2. Limits in time (kala)
  3. Limits in object or properties (vastu)

Desa Pariccheda Sunyam (omnipresent)

Desa mean space and Pariccheda means cutting, things are cut in space therefore an object is here and is therefore not there.

Brahman is not limited by space and therefore exits everywhere. Further there is no space where Brahman is not.

Kala Pariccheda Sunyam (eternal)

Every object that we know of has a beginning and an end in time. There is a time when it was create and a time when it is destroyed. Inbetween it exists, and outside it does not exist.

Brahman is not limited by time, it is eternal.

Vastu Pariccheda Sunyam (non-dual)

Brahman is not defined by properties.

#TODO