[Advaita-l] Nirguna Brahman and Maya

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 12:44 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> PraNAms
>
> First we cannot ask what about NirguNa Brahman since that very question
> objectifies that which cannot be objectified.
> For our understanding we can say a jnaani understands that His true nature
> is beyond words and names.
> He also understands all the words and names are mithyaa only.
> He understands all are in Him but yet none are in Him as Krishna says
> mastaani sarva bhuutani  and then again na ca mastaani bhuutani.
> This apparent contradiction is one from undersanding I am the NirguNa
> Brahman and other understanding all this apparent naama and ruupa are my
> glory.
>

Ishwara can understand or say this but Nirguna Brahman does not know any
thing other than Him. There is no name or form - apparent or real for
Nirguna Brahman. Is it not?

There are two questions:


   1. When one says or hears "aham brahmasmi", what is he supposed to
   understand? The entity indicated by the word Brahman is beyond
   comprehension and understanding. So, a speaker is equating an entity that
   is known (I) to an entity that is unknown (Brahman). This is useful when we
   have to understand the unknown entity in terms of the known but not to
   remove ignorance about a known entity with the knowledge of an unknown
   entity because the latter is an impossibility.
   2. We say that Maya, which is the cause of all these variegatedness, is
   the Shakti of Ishwara. With respect to Nirguna Brahman, there is no
   Ishwara, no Maya, no effect of Maya. Is it so?