There is no definition for God
Only for what God is not, for if one is to define something they must mark it off from other objects.
Is the transcendent Absolute even conceivable in the manner that one can speak of the “concept” there of? If as Shankara says, the Absolute is “That from which words fall back,” that which ignorance (
avidya) alone would attempt to define, then what function would serve the variety of names the Absolute refers to?
The Absolute is inexplicable through the viewpoint of ignorance and through the attribution of “name and form” (
nama-rupa).
Nama-rupa is the same as the conception of a snake in place of a rope. Both are destroyed when knowledge dawns. “Hence the Absolute cannot be designated by any name, nor can it assume any form.”
How then can intrinsic knowledge of the Absolute be acquired?
Solely from the
paramarthika perspective, the view point from the Absolute itself.
The relative viewpoint,
vyavaharika perspective of the Absolute can only be viewed under the conditions of name and form. This distinction is very important.
The Absolute Self is to deny that the body or any other empirically knowable factor is the self and to designate what is left as real, even though it cannot be expressed in words.
Thus we see the apophatic nature of any and all designations and definitions concerning the Absolute.
If we are to define the Absolute as Reality, Knowledge, Infinity; each element negates the non-transcendent dimensions that are conceivable in one or both of the other elements.
Reality means that its being never fails, in contrast to the forms of things which being modifications are existent at one time, only to “fail” at some other time. This could imply that the Absolute is a non-conscious material cause, the term knowledge cancels any such false notion. But knowledge can be mistaken for an empirical attribute of the intellect, it too needs to be conditioned by the term infinity, as it negates any possibility of bifurcation into subject and object which is a necessary condition for empirical knowledge. Infinity is said to “characterize the Absolute by negating finitude,” whereas “the terms ‘Reality’ and ‘Knowledge’ characterize the Absolute by investing it with their own positive meanings”, which must be understood from an apophatic viewpoint.
A fool was told he was not a man, confused he asked someone, “What am I?”
The person showed the fool the classes of different beings from minerals to plants and beyond explaining that he is none of them, “So you are not anything that is not a man.”
As is the indirect manner of indicating the nature of the Absolute.
Communicable meaning is restricted within the following categories:
Genus
Action
Quality
Relation
Since the Absolute transcends these categories—it does not belong to any genus, performs no action, has no quality, and enters into no relation with “another” apart from itself—it “cannot be expressed by any word”
Because the Absolute is only indirectly designated by terms that themselves must be negated, it can take on other “definitions”.
Sat-Chit-Ananda, or “Being-Consciousness-Bliss”
Sat – Being/Reality refers to that which is not non-being or not nothingness on the one hand. On the other hand it designates transcendent Being, “that which is” as opposed to “things that are.”
Chit – Consciousness refers to That which is not non-conscious on the one hand, and on the other it designates transcendent Consciousness as opposed to contents or objects of consciousness.
Ananda – That which is not susceptible to suffering or deprivation on the one hand. On the other it designates transcendent Bliss or Bliss as such, as opposed to such and such an experience of bliss. To Bliss we cannot not be, as opposed to blissful experiences that is contingent on worldly circumstances.
In the application of the double negation, the first negates the direct opposite of the term, indicating in a direct manner intrinsic nature or quality intended by it. The second denies any common standard with what appears from
nama-rupa to be similar to that quality, indicating indirectly the transcendent degree to the quality here in question.
The first negation directs awareness towards these three internal “modes” of the Absolute, whilst the second negation eliminates any traces of relativity that may appear to pertain to these modes when conceived on the plane of differentiated existence.
While the relative subject has the property of empirical awareness, the Absolute Subject is at once transcendent Being-Consciousness-Bliss, in absolute non-differentiation, indivisibility, and non-duality.
To say that the Absolute is Being-Consciousness-Bliss gives some idea of the nature of the Absolute even while indicating the incommensurability between that idea and the reality alluded to.
There is no definition for God
There is no definition for God
Re: There is no definition for God
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