Vedanta - Discussion Forum I (introductory))

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Since everything is Brahman, even the unreal (maya) is Brahman as nothing exists independent of Brahman. Brahman sans the real and unreal (Rasa atheetham). Brahman transends the reality-unreality paradigm.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Sridhar, Interesting way to put it. But logically a dangerous minefield.

Let me play a bit. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

I define something called 'non-brahman'. Since brahman according to the quote is 'everything' , is brahman also the non-brahman?

In the quote the words 'unreal' and 'exists' have been used to basically say thet 'unreal exists', which is same as saying 'non-existent exists'. Also 'brahman transcends reality and unreality' can be rephrased as 'reality transcends reality and unreality'.

A statement of form 'A=not A' is known as contradiction in logic. A contradictory statement is taken to be self evidently false. If you take a contradictory statement to be true, you can derive any statement from it.

It may be OK to mystically dwell on a contradiction to go beyond logic per se. Zen does that. But a philosophical theory can't afford to do that.

There are known preils of the use of the phrase 'all' and 'everything'. There are dangers of using the phrases like 'brahman is everything' too loosely too. Consider the statements:

1. Does a set of all sets contain itself?
2. Can an omnipotent defeat itself ?

IMHO such arguments often gives rise to very interesing forms of philosophical systems that are best termed 'Airy-Fairy vaada'.