Transcript BRAHMAN, YOGA, AND “VEDANTA SCHOOL”

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THE NOTION OF BRAHMAN
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In world religions, we find two dominant visions
of God: immanence and transcendence.
They are both found in Hinduism in the notions of
SAGUNA BRAHMAN and NIRGUNA
BRAHMAN
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The Divine Paradox:
Immanence and Transcendence
GOD ad extra, ad nos
 DEUS
GOD in se
DEITAS
 SAGUNA
NIRGUNA Brahman
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Brahman
IMMANENCE
God of Abraham
Isaac and Jacob,
The Husband of the Widow
The Father of the Orphan
God as a friend, a companion
TRANSCENDENCE
GOD of the Philosophers
 “It is not appropriate to call Hinduism a form of Idolatry.
A verse in the Yogavasistha says of Brahman: “Thou art
formless; thy only form is our knowledge of Thee.” In fact
the Hindu reveres the cow that he sees, not the cow that
we see. No one has ever worshipped an idol. Some have
worshipped God in the form of an idol; that is what idols
are for.”
Cantwell Smith, “Idolatry in Comparative Perspective.”
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“Images of the Hindu gods are not intended
to be understood literally…In studying
Hinduism, traditional labels of polytheism,
monotheism, or atheism are inappropriate.
They are not helpful in understanding
Hindu attitudes toward the divine. Perhaps
the term HENOTHEISM is better, for it
emphasizes one superior god in the presence
of lesser gods.”
(Warren Matthews, World Religions. 4th edition,
Thomson/Wadsworth,2004), pp.108-109.
BRAHMAN, YOGA, AND “VEDANTA SCHOOL”
 VEDANTA = “VEDA END”
 A school of Philosophy within Hinduism
 The term “Vedanta” refers to the Upanishads (which are at the end of the Vedas)
 Vedanta school used the Upanishads as its primary inspiration
 SHANKARA (c.788-820): the greatest teacher of Vedanta school
 “Jnana Yoga” (“Knowledge Yoga”) was highly refined by the Vedanta school
 “Jnana Yoga” is particularly appropriate for priests and intellectuals
 Hinduism maintains that different people need different spiritual paths
 Yoga = a road to perfection, a way used by people to perfect their union with the divine
SHANKARA and ADVAITA VEDANTA
 Shankara thought that spiritual liberation was achieved when the individual personally came to
understand the unity of all things.
 Shankara emphasized so strongly this unity that his branch of the Vedanta school is called “Advaita” or
Monism.
 This view made ordinary worship impossible. As a result it was rejected by other thinkers of the
Vedanta school, such as RAMANUJA (d. 1137) who emphasized passages in the Upanishads that seem
to speak of Brahman as being separate in some ways from the world.
ADVAITA VEDANTA (Shankara’s type of Vedanta is called ADVAITA)
 ADVAITA = Monism (But not a good translation)
 ADVAITA = “not-two-ness” (a-dvai-ta); there is no other reality
 ADVAITA = “All is Brahman”
 Strong emphasis on the Oneness of everything
 Like the person who at dusk is frightened by a coil of rope that he mistakenly perceives as a snake, so
many people mistakenly see things as being separate and different.
 A person who perceives things as being separate from one another and from Brahman is mistaken
 Any devotion to a god or goddess who is thought to be different from the worshiper is also mistaken.
BRAHMAN
In his “Crest-Jewel of Discrimination” Shankara wrote the following:
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“Brahman is that one Reality which appears to our ignorance as a
manifold universe of names and forms and changes.
Like the gold of which many ornaments are made, it remains in
itself unchanged.
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Similarly, the waves of the ocean and the drops of water in
the waves may be considered separate entities; but the larger
truth is that they are all just the same ocean in varied,
changing forms.
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Such is Brahman, and ‘That art Thou.’
Meditate upon this truth.”
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SHANKARA (c.788-820): the greatest teacher of Vedanta school
Poet Shivavakkiyar (XVII's century BC?, Tamil literature) described Shiva as the
One God in the following way:
 "Not
Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva,
 In the Beyond is He,
 Not black, nor white, nor ruddy,
 This source of things that be;
 Not great is he, not little,
 Not female and not male
 But stands for, far, and far beyond
 All being's utmost pale."
What is the basic Hindu view of God ?
 The name the Hindu give to the supreme reality is
BRAHMAN.
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Brahman has a dual etymology,
it derives from two roots:
 "Br" (meaning "to breathe")
 "Brih" ("to be great")
BRAHMAN THE SUPREME
SAGUNA BRAHMAN
BRAHMAN =<
NIRGUNA BRAHMAN
NIRGUNA
SAGUNA
BRAHMAN
BRAHMAN
!
V
Impersonal
!
V
Personified as
Shiva
Vishnu
Kali
Ganesha
NIRGUNA
BRAHMAN
- This is the impersonal Brahman,
- Brahman as he is in himself,
beyond attributes,
beyond human comprehension,
beyond the categories of human thinking
beyond the categories of human language.
 SAGUNA BRAHMAN
- This is God in a “personal form,”
- a Brahman with personlike qualities
- This is Brahman as he is known with his attributes.
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Popular devotion worships Saguna Brahman
personified as
either Shiva, Vishnu, Kali,
or Ganesha,
and their multiple avatars.
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The chief attributes linked with the name Brahman are:
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sat (being)
 - chit (awareness)
 - ananda (bliss)
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God is being, awareness, and bliss.
God is Utter reality, utter consciousness, and utterly beyond all
possibility of frustration.
This is the basic Hindu view of God.
Popular devotion worships Saguna Brahman personified as either
Shiva, Vishnu, Kali, or Ganesha, and their multiple avatars.
Brahman is also the fundamental key to understanding
 the whole Hindu conception of spirituality,
 the nature of human beings,
 the code of ethical behavior,
 the notion of “true worship.”
All this is based on the notion of
 “interconnectedness of everything”
 and the presence of Brahman in every creature
(=Atman-Brahman)
"What is a human being ?"
 A man is an Atman-Brahman
 We are infinite beings, eternal beings; but
because of our ignorance we reduce
ourselves to the finite dimension of being,
and divide ourselves.
In Hinduism,
 Atman is the ultimate essence of a person,
conceived of as an immaterial reality that
provides consciousness.
 Atman is the hidden self within every human
being, the infinite center of every life.
A man has three basic components:
 1°) a body
 2°) a personality or individual apparent self
 3°) Atman-Brahman.
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Brahman is within every being
Being truly human can happen only
 - unity with ourselves
 - by detachment from the finite self
 - and by attachment to the whole of things.
That is to move
 from the will-to-get to the will-to-give
 from the will-to-win to the will-to-serve.
 from faith in the finite to faith in the infinite
 to be free from self-centeredness, and self-worship.