The Seen is in the seer

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Miguel Angel Carrasco wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Mar 1998, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:
>
>         >  > Miguel writes :
>         >  > 1) that  there must be a seer that sees the seen.
>         >  > Agreed.
>
> > Not in the case of Brahman.  Brahman is self-luminous so no external seer
> is needed.
>
> But who said that Brahman is the seen, in need of an outside seer?
> It is the only seer. In fact it is the only thing there is.
> So there is no place to talk about a seer of Brahman.
>

The reason I brought this up is because this is one of the arguments made
by opponents.  If what is conventionally called seeing is false, how can
we ever know there is such an entity as brahman at all?  It seems to them
that the best an Advaitin can hope to achieve is a kind of agnosticism.
Needless to say this is not good enough.

While "neti neti" etc. may suggest otherwise advaita Vedanta is quite
optimistic that Truth can be known in a positive way.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>