Splitting hairs on a bald head

[Jonathan Bricklin]

Greg Goode writes:

>>Indeed, as Deutsch says:  "whatever is expressed is
>>ultimately non-Brahman, is ultimately untrue."

Balsekar says this too, so does his disciple Wayne Liquorman.

>>But "I" (stages 1-4
>>inclusive) believe it is untrue because, like infinity--the one concept
it
>>may most resemble--Nirguna Brahman is to *full* to comprehend not too
>>empty.   "At rest" sounds like a nice starting/stopping place (depending
on
>>whether you are counting forward or backward) but "at rest" cannot exist
>>unless "in motion" exists as well.  You cannot make sense of one without
>>the other.

>Is this a problem?  Are you thinking that if you can't make sense of one
>without the other, then we aren't correctly describing the nirguna side,
>where it seems that it should be able to exist without there being any
>quality-filled counterpart?

1.  You *can't* make sense of one without the other.

2.  Nirguna Brahman, by definition, cannot be described.

3.  What is a nirguna side?  It's all inclusive isn't it?  This sounds more
like noumena/phenomena partioning.

 >There are times where "at rest" is without the
>"in motion" side.

Conceivability is not one of those times..


 >Also, can't you say the same for the Nirguna/Saguna Brahman distinction?

Yes, to the extent that Nirguna Brahman is conceived as Brahman "in
itself," and the "in itself" only makes sense in relation to the "for a
jiva" of  Saguna Brahman.  But that is hardly an argument for taking a
phenomonal quality and absolutizing it.


>And if we all accept Deutsch's point, why worry about the particular
defects of a
>particular term?

I'm not worried about it I'm just responding to it.  As others respond to
what they see as the defects in my terms.
Nor do I believe that   "Whatever is expressed is
ultimately non-Brahman, is ultimately untrue" is an invitation to
say whatever you want about Brahman.  To me, Nirguna Brahman is everything
that
ever is was or will be now.  It can't be spoken of because there is no
vantage
point outside of it to connect with a prepositional bridge:  no "of", no
"about".

 In a sense, if you accept that Brahman is the totality of all that is, was
or will be now,
that *is* saying the same thing as that it is "at rest."  If  there is no
real separation between
past, present and future then
there is no real change either, and rest is all there is.  This is what
Parmenides believed.  An
incomprehensible rest, but rest nonetheless.  Perhaps Balsekar is getting
at that when he says
"the emptiness of the void is the same  as the fullness of the plenum."
But if it is, he need not turn the lights out to get there.

At any rate, all the voids, darknesses, silences, so apparently
beloved by the Nisgardatta school of the Absolute, cannot, conceivably, go
it alone.


>5. Gangaji uses "That which is always there."


You saved the best for last!



Regards,


Jonathan Bricklin