CHAPTER VIII.

BRAHMAN OR THE ABSOLUTE — THE
D VAN DV-ATlTAM.1
Let us see now if this summation will give us all we want, if it will withstand and resolve all doubts and queries and objections, even as the rod of power wielded by Vasishtha swallowed up and made nought of all the weapons of Vishvamittra. Let us test it with questions the most wild and weird and fanciful. If it fails to answer one, it fails to answer all, and we must seek again few another summing up.
Aham Etat Na — this logion, in its entirety, represents with the greatest accuracy that it is possible for words to attain, the nature of the Absolute, the Absolute which so many names and words endeavour to describe — the unconditioned ; the transcendent ; consciousness that includes unconsciousness ; the compactness,
^8 Iff m t beyond the pairs, i.e., beyond the relative. 96
THE DVANDV-AllTAM. 97
solidity, plenum of cognition, knowledge, or thought ; the supreme ; the indescribable ; the unknowable.1
This timeless thought, this spaceless idea, taken as a whole, changelessly constitutes and is the nature of Brahman. So taken, it is one thought, one knowledge, one cognition, one single act or mood of consciousness, in which there is no particular content, but which yet contains the totality of all possible particulars ; it is unbroken, pieceless ; there is no motion in it, no space, no time, no change, no shifting, no uneyenness, but all equality, an all-complete condition of balance and repose, pure, stainless and formless.2 We can call it unconsciousness also, the absence of thought or cognition or action or any mood at all. For where the This is the whole of the Not-Self, and even that is negated, the consciousness that is left may well be called unconsciousness, as that of the state of sound slumber ; it is clearly not
, lit,
, ffrftsnf, ^rat, ffif^w, ^TT^T- f^HiiTt, *tf, *nwj, ^TRf, ^r^i,
&c., are the descriptive words used in Sarpskrit.
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any particular consciousness such as that wherein the particularity of the This, as a this, a that, defines both the subject Self and the object Not-Self. And yet it includes the totality of all such particular consciousnesses, for the Not-Self includes all particular this's.
Taken in two parts the same thought gives : (i) aham etat, I this, i.e., I am this something other than I, a piece of matter, a material or physical body ; and (2) (aham) etat na, (I am) not this thing which is other than I, this piece of matter, this material or physical body. Here, in these two sub-propositions, inseparable parts and constituents of the one logion, we have, as we shall see later in detail, the whole process of samsara, samsara which means a process, a process of alternation, a movement of rotation, for it is made up of the alternation of opposites : birth and death ; growth and decay ; inbreathing and outbreathing ; waking and sleeping ; accept- ance and rejection ; greed and surfeit ; pursuit and renunciation ; evolution and involution ; formation and dissolution ; integration and dis- integration ; identification and differentiation ; differentiation and remergence — such is the essence and the whole of the world-process, at whatever point of space or time we examine it, in whatever aspect we look at it, animate or so-called inanimate, chemical, or mechanical,
THE DVANDV-ATlTAM. 99
or physical, or organic, the birth and death of an insect and also each rhythmic wing-beat of that insect, or the birth and death of a solar system and also each vast cyclic sweep in space and time of that system. Why the logion has to be taken in parts and also as a whole, will appear when we study further the nature of the This.
This single logion thus includes within itself both changelessness and change. It includes the fulness of the Absolute-consciousness or unconsciousness, from the all-embracing timeless and spaceless standpoint of which the Self has eternally negated, abolished, and annihilated the Not-Self, in its totality, without remainder, and so left behind a pure strifelessness of perfect balance and repose and utmost peace. It also includes the pseudo-eternal, the pseudo-infinite, the in-de-finite, and, technically, the illusive, mayavic, endlessness of incessant identifications and separations, on the smallest and the largest scales, of the Self and the Not-Self, each identification being immediately balanced up by a separation, each separation immediately balanced up by an identification, ^ sarga, creation, and Uc?^ pralaya, dissolution, following each other in untiring and ceaseless rotation, in order to imitate and show out in time, in an ever-futile and ever-renewed endeavour,
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that which is complete, always and at once, in the Absolute.
Thus it comes about that the method of the true Vedanta, the repeated super-imposition of an attribute upon the Supreme (object of enquiry and definition), and then the refutation and strik- ing away of it, till all particular attributes have been struck away and the Supreme remains defined as the un-de-y?»able — that method is also the method of all thought, and the method of the world-process, which is the embodiment of the endeavour to impose material attributes upon the attributeless throughout all time, the endless endeavour to define Spirit in terms of Matter.
Wf *TT\ "*, Aham Etat Na — this transcendent tfPTiT, samvit, thought, consciousness, idea, then, timelessly, spacelessly and changelessly constitutes and is the ^HT^, svabhava, the own-being, the nature, of the Absolute, which is also, therefore, identical with the totality of the world-process ; such totality being attained not by the endless addition of parts and pieces of time and space as outside of us, but by the grasping of the whole of the Not-Self with all space and time as within us, so that past and future, behind and before, collapse into the now and the here, and parts are summed up, by abolition, in the whole.
THE DVANDV-ATlTAM. IOI
What merits and qualifications, or absence of merits and qualifications, that may rightly be sought in and required of the Absolute, with- out which the Absolute would not be what its name implies, are missing from this ? Is not the thought independent of all else ? Does it not contain all in itself? The Absolute is the unconditioned. What condition limits this perfect cognition, this complete idea, which is its own end and looks to no end beyond itself, which is also its own means and seeks no means out of itself for its realisation ? It is one single act of consciousness, which looks not before or after, to past or future, but is complete, and complete now, in the eternal present, complete here, in the infinite point. The ' I,' holding the whole of the ' Not-I ' before itself, denies, in one single moment which includes all time, at one single point which exhausts all space, in one single act which sums up the whole of the world-process in itself, the whole of that ' Not-I,' denies that itself is anything other - than - 1, a mighty truism which abolishes and yet covers all possible details of knowledge, for all possible ' not-I's ' that may be known are summed up in the ' Not-I ' so denied. All possible conditions are within this Absolute idea. All contradictions are within it. All the Relative
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and all relatives are within it And yet it is not opposed to them or outside of them, for it indeed is the very substratum and possibility of them, nay, it is them, in their entirety, for so taken all together they counter- balance and abolish each other wholly. All divisions are within it, and yet it is unbroken, undivided, consistent, partless and numberless, the beyond number, for the One and the Many are both within it ; addition neutralising sub- traction, subtraction nullifying addition, multi- plication counteracting division, and division completely balancing multiplication ; all the possible opposites that constitute the factors of samsara are present in it in equation and equili- bration. It is the reconciliation of all opposites. It is fajlf, nirgunam, attributeless. Being is in it ; Nothing or Non-Being is in it too. It is beyond Being and Nothing. It is Being ; it is Nothing ; it is both ; it is neither.1 And yet it is there, within us, around us, unmistak- able. It is the whole, the constant, process of our daily life. " It moveth and it moveth not, far is it and yet near ; it is within the heart of
v Rig-veda. X. cxxix. 1, 2.
^TTIT.
Hymn by Sliankar&ch&rya.
THE DVANDV-ATlTAM. 1 03
all, and yet apart from all." 1 It is the all. All is in it. Assertion by it and in it gives existence to the *Hlr«l Anatma, the Not- Self; rejection and denial by it and within it impose non-existence on that same Anatma. It sayeth : I (am) This ; and the This, the Not- Self, is. It sayeth : (I this) Not-Self (am) not ; and the Not-Self is no more. But it sayeth both these things in the same breath, simul- taneously. What is the result? This endless process that is ever coming out of nothing into being and vanishing out of being into nothing. We see it plainly and yet may not describe it adequately. Truly indescribable,
anirvachaniya, has it been called, as also the world-process which is it. It is the vacuum, the shunya, 3n*r, of the shunyavadi,2 when the Self and the Not-Self are regarded as having neutralised each other in a mutual negation. It is the plenum which is ever full of both, in the affirmation that ever lies implicit and hidden in the heart of the Negation. Two eternals are here in this Absolute, the eternal ' I ' and the
TRNrfir TTC W? ^rffffcfr \
ire ^^qrw NI^H: 11
Isha- Upanishat. 5.
*"He who holds the doctrine that all is nothing, a mere vacuum, or that all arises from and goes back into nothing."
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pseudo-eternal ' Not-I,' eternal Being and pseudo-eternal Nothing ; and yet they do not limit or restrict each other in any way, for there is only one eternal, and the other pseudo- eternal is not. Beyond space and time are they yet, and therefore beyond limits ; and neither limits the other but rather each necessarily fits into the other, or, yet rather, the other is entirely lost in the one. None can take objection to the eternity of a pure Nothing beside the eternity of pure Being ; and yet the two are opposed and not identical ; and yet also both inhere in and make up the Absolute. If we are inclined to feel that the ' I ' holding up to itself and denying the 'Not-I' implies a duality, let us remember what the ' Not-I ' is, essentially, and what this denial of it by the ' I ' amounts to. The ' Not-I ' is the Negation of the ' I,' and this denial of it is the Negation of a negation of itself by the ' I.' What objection can there be to the state- ment that " I am not Not-I,"" I am nothing else than I"? Is it not purely equivalent to the state- ment " I am only I "? And if so, where is the duality in it ? A difficulty seems to arise when we think that the pure ' Not-I ' is not equivalent to the totality of all particular ' Not-I's.' This difficulty will be dealt with later in an endeavour to show that the pure ' Not-I ' is equivalent to the totality of all particular ' Not-I's.'
THE DVANDV-ATlTAM. 105
Such, then, is the indescribable of which the totality of the world-process is the endless description. Exact and rigorous and scientific description here perforce becomes a hymn, which may seem mystic to the unscrutinising observer, and yet is strictly accurate. The indescribability of the absolute Brahman is not the result of a powerlessness of thought, but of thought's completion. It is indescribable if we will use only one of the two sets of thought-counters, terms of Being or terms of Nothing, such as are used in dealing with things relative and limited ; but it is fully describable if we will use both sets at once.
The names of this Absolute are many, as said before. To fix the nomenclature and prevent confusion, the English word used to describe it in future in this work will ordinarily be the Absolute, and the Samskrit Brahman. Para- brahman is the same word as the last, with only the intensive and eulogistic para, i.e., supreme, added. One other common and significant Samskrit name for it which should be specially noted here, is the Param-atma — the Supreme Atma, the Supreme Self. In strictness the Absolute is as much the whole of Not-Self as the Self; but it is given the name of the 1 Supreme Self especially because the human Jiva, as will be apparent from what has been i
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said before in Chapters IV. and V., arrives first at the Pratyag-atma, the inward Self, the universal Self, and being established there, it then includes the pseudo-universal Not-Self within itself, and thus realises ultimately its identity with the Absolute, which it then calls the Param-atma — the Supreme Self, because first seen through the universal Self, though now seen also to contain the Not-Self ; and because the Self is the element, the factor, of Being in the triune Absolute.
As the Shvetdshvatara says x : " This udgita, this music-sound, the Aum, is the supreme Brahman. In it are the three, well indicated by the (three) letters. Knowing the secret hidden between them, knowers of Brahman merge therein and (gradually) become free from rebirth." And again : " When with the lamp of the Atma, (the Jiva) beholds the Brahman with all-intentness, Brahman, the unborn, the time- less, the pure of all tattvas, then he becometh free from all bonds."
rfa^ •faf^rsrr
i.7.
it
i. 15.