06-12-2005, 04:13 PM
Carl said: <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Who on earth said that "rasa" is "saguna"?? What do you understand by saguna and nirguna anyway? As per the commentaries, nirguna means transcendent to the gunas -- the 3 modes of material nature. Nirguna has been defined as "nis-trai-gunya", i.e. free of the 3 gunas. IOW nirguna means non-material. Nirguna does not mean "no qualities". It means "no material qualities". And that's a nuance that your simplistic theories cannot grasp.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, in advaita vedanta, 'guna' stands for attributes in general. Although in continuation with Samkhya, it is often supposed that combinations of triguna indicate all the gunas/attributes. So here is a clear example of differences in definitions leading to unnecessary brickbats.. A lot of decibels are being wasted on semantics. It should be clear that "Atma", "guna" , "Brahman" etc may mean different things to different people. Lets be clear that it is utterly uselss to argue over definitions. Axioms and methods of derivations and results one can argue about.
Below I take saguna to mean with something possessing attributes in general, not just triguna.
Advatic position is that saguna is with attributes and nirguna is without attributes. One strong feature of dvaita and vishista-advaita is that, they propose a highest level of saguna, which is called Ishvara or some other name. Here is a real philosophical problem:
Attributes do not belong solely to an object. They are in the object-observer-observation combination. A marigold flower is not yellow by itself. Certain wavelngths of light must be present. Even then, a cow with single kind of cones in its retina will not be able to see 'yellow', only humans who have three kinds of cones can see the "color" as we understand it.
Now the question is: When Ishvara is being described in saguna terms (advaitaic defn of saguna), he is then the object possessing those attributes. Who is the observer then? Does the observer stand apart from the Ishvara? Then there will be another being than Ishvara himself for whom Ishvara himself is an object!. If this another being also has attributes, then another observer is needed. In short an infinite regress problem is there. Which also shows the difficulty with proposing a highest level of Saguna. It appears any saguna can always be superceded by another saguna. This is why Advaita came to define Nirguna as the only viable limit of sequence of sagunas.
If the observer of the 'gunas' of Ishvara doesn't stand apat from Ishvara, but is Ishvara's own Self or Atma, then there is a witness self within Ishvara for whom Ishvara with attributes is an object. Why shouldn't that deeper witness self within the Ishvara not be held superior to Ishvara himself? If that deeper self in turn possessed attributes, that willl necessitate another deeper witness self. Again this sequence can not stop at any level where the deeper witness self has attributes. There is no highest/final point of saguna type to stop at in this process. But a limiting point of Nirguna can be defined.
Well, in advaita vedanta, 'guna' stands for attributes in general. Although in continuation with Samkhya, it is often supposed that combinations of triguna indicate all the gunas/attributes. So here is a clear example of differences in definitions leading to unnecessary brickbats.. A lot of decibels are being wasted on semantics. It should be clear that "Atma", "guna" , "Brahman" etc may mean different things to different people. Lets be clear that it is utterly uselss to argue over definitions. Axioms and methods of derivations and results one can argue about.
Below I take saguna to mean with something possessing attributes in general, not just triguna.
Advatic position is that saguna is with attributes and nirguna is without attributes. One strong feature of dvaita and vishista-advaita is that, they propose a highest level of saguna, which is called Ishvara or some other name. Here is a real philosophical problem:
Attributes do not belong solely to an object. They are in the object-observer-observation combination. A marigold flower is not yellow by itself. Certain wavelngths of light must be present. Even then, a cow with single kind of cones in its retina will not be able to see 'yellow', only humans who have three kinds of cones can see the "color" as we understand it.
Now the question is: When Ishvara is being described in saguna terms (advaitaic defn of saguna), he is then the object possessing those attributes. Who is the observer then? Does the observer stand apart from the Ishvara? Then there will be another being than Ishvara himself for whom Ishvara himself is an object!. If this another being also has attributes, then another observer is needed. In short an infinite regress problem is there. Which also shows the difficulty with proposing a highest level of Saguna. It appears any saguna can always be superceded by another saguna. This is why Advaita came to define Nirguna as the only viable limit of sequence of sagunas.
If the observer of the 'gunas' of Ishvara doesn't stand apat from Ishvara, but is Ishvara's own Self or Atma, then there is a witness self within Ishvara for whom Ishvara with attributes is an object. Why shouldn't that deeper witness self within the Ishvara not be held superior to Ishvara himself? If that deeper self in turn possessed attributes, that willl necessitate another deeper witness self. Again this sequence can not stop at any level where the deeper witness self has attributes. There is no highest/final point of saguna type to stop at in this process. But a limiting point of Nirguna can be defined.