[Advaita-l] Meditation on the Nirguna Brahman results in Parama Ananda

[V Subrahmanian]

On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 10:27 PM Krishna Kashyap <kkashyap2011 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Nirguna Brahman cannot be an object of meditation anywhere in
> shankarabhashya. Hence it is not an upasya vastu or even dhyeya vastu. An
> attributeless Brahman cannot be meditated upon. One can say lower
> capability people can meditate only on Saguna Brahman but higher capability
> folks can. In that case, it does not become upasana. It becomes a denial of
> all that is not self.  In Bhagavatham these aspects are not explained in
> the original verses. They vaguely state meditation on nirguna-brahman.
>

While it is true that Brahman/Atman is not a subject matter for upAsana in
the common sense of meditation, yet the word 'upAseeta' in certain contexts
means nididhyasanam on Brahman. Here is an example:   ‘आत्मेत्येवोपासीत’
(बृ. उ. १ । ४ । ७)
<https://advaitasharada.sringeri.net/display/bhashya/Brha/devanagari?page=1&id=BR_C01_S04_V07&hl=%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A4>
Atman alone is to be realized.  There is the 9th chapter of the
Panchadashi named 'dhyAna deepaH' where the dhyana/upasana/meditation of
Brahman is taught elaborately culminating in aparoksha jnanam.

warm regards
subbu

>
> In certain places, Shankaracharya uses the term "sarva samsara dharma
> varjitam" for Brahman, which does not negate all gunas; however, only those
> are samsara dharmas. Then one can ask how to understand the advaitic view
> of satyam, jnanam anantam in negative terms such as asat-vyavritti,
> achetanat-vyavritti or ajnanat vyavritti, other than that which is limited.
> This is because, Brahman has no samsara gunas such as limitedness,
> non-sentience, and non-existence. By the way, one meaning of existence is
> immutability as per Advaita, not mithya. If you understand it this way,
> Advaitic writers are stating that Brahman cannot be known as it is not an
> object but a subject only. Hence all denotations have to denote only
> upadhis and not Brahma svarupa. If you understand it this way, there is no
> real difference between Advaita and other Vedantic traditions.
>
> Here and there in Shankara bhashya you see terms like (sarva dharma
> varjitam) or sentences that deny any gunas.
>
> If you read how in Shankara-gita-bhashya, over later chapters (say last
> 6), you see the development of bhakti to saguna brahman, and realization of
> Brahman as only sakshi, and then finally triputi laya of fusion of
> jnata-jnana-jneya occur. In fact, without Brahman's grace, the triputi-laya
> does not happen. see this carefully hidden in the final chapters of Gita. I
> am not remembering exactly the verses. I can find it later.
> *Best Regards,*
>
> *Krishna Kashyap*
>
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