The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity

CHAPTER SIX: Brahman as God

83 CHAPTER SIX Brahman as God In the previous chapter, we considered the status of the world in relation to brahman. While the world cannot express fully the nature of brahman, it partakes in the nature of brahman and derives its value from this fact. The world is not an illusory projection of the human mind and Śanùkara does not equate it with the reality of a dream. Unlike mental illusions, which cease to exist when they are contradicted, the world does not disappear when brahman is known. What disappears is the erroneous understanding that the world has a reality and existence that is independent of brahman. The fundamental characteristic of right knowledge is understanding the world to be non-different in its essential nature from brahman. Since brahman’s non-duality is not compromised by the existence of the world, it does not have to be recovered by the negation of the world. We also considered the problems of positing māyā to be the material cause of the universe. If the world is regarded as truly insentient, then the need arises to propose a cause other than brahman, since brahman is, by nature, sentient. For the Advaita tradition, however, the world does not enjoy an existence and a reality that is independent of brahman. Reality is not comprised of the sentient brahman plus the world, which is fundamentally insentient. Reality is ultimately brahman alone. The world, as a limited entity, does not fully express brahman, nor does it possess an essential nature that is different from or independent of brahman. Brahman is capable, without the aid of any other cause, of expressing itself in multiple forms and names. These names and forms, as discussed above, have characteristics that do not constitute the nature of brahman, but they do not possess an ontological status independent of brahman. As a term for the inexplicable process of how the One, without any transformation or loss of nature (svarūpa), assumes various forms, māyā has a place in the metaphysics of Advaita. Its significance, however, would only be epistemic and not ontological.1 This distinction is not consistently clarified in Advaita and many Advaita commentators, while claiming that māyā is epistemic , go on to great lengths in treating it as having ontological reality. Māyā 84 THE ADVAITA WORLDVIEW may also be an appropriate term to describe the fact that reality is not what it appears to be. While each object in the world appears to have an independent nature and reality, the truth is that nothing exists apart from brahman. B R A H M A N A S N I RG U N³ A A N D S A G U N³ A When māyā is granted independent ontological status in Advaita, commentators distinguish between two orders or levels of brahman and suggest a hierarchy between these two. One is parā or higher brahman and the other is aparā or lower brahman.2 The higher brahman is presented as nirgun³a brahman, the absolute, non-dual brahman, transcending time, space, causation, and relations. It is beyond all change and action and free from all names and forms. Nirgun³a brahman, as defined above, cannot be the source of the world, since it is considered to be beyond causation and activity.3 One Advaita writer cogently summarized this claim. On the one hand there is brahman which is One only, which is formless, attributeless, and actionless. On the other, there is the world of perceivable objects, diverse in name and form. That is the phenomenal world, the world of the many. Brahman is One; the world is many. Brahman is attributeless, nirgun³a; objects are qualified by attributes, they are sagun³a. Brahman has no name or form; objects have different forms and names. Brahman is inactive and permanent; the objects of the world are active and subject to change. What is the link between the two? What is the modus operandi of the transition of the One into the many?4 The modus operandi or connecting principle between brahman and the world, according to this writer, is māyā. Without māyā, nirgun³a brahman cannot make the transition from impersonal awareness to personal creator. It is brahman associated with māyā that is the origin and source of the world. Brahman associated with māyā is referred to as sagun³a brahman and belongs to the lower (aparā) order or level. Brahman associated with m...