That Which Cannot Be Described

A. All things start with Brahman, the infinite. One does not describe Brahman by what it is, but by what it isn’t. Brahman is the state which all subjective and objective distinctions are annihilated. Brahman is the experience of being. To be, we must start with nirguna Brahman. nirguna Brahman is Brahman without qualities—a transcendent state of being with no distinction. Furthermore, nirguna, as an experience, is one where all things and their definitions are overcome. When the formless nirguna becomes neguna, the material realm takes form. Samsara is the material realm where life extinguishes and is reborn. Brahman in form is seguna Brahman. Seguna is all that we are aware of and how we experience life. Nirguna and seguna are one and that one is many. If everything we perceive comes from a formless state of being and is given characteristics when it creates manifestations in the material realm (samsara) and becomes the same state of being, but with qualities, we have an instance of “God as the world.” God as the world is expressed by the relationship of seguna and nirguna Brahman because God takes on all manifestations in the world, but still remains the same source. With the creation of samsara, it is easy for humans to fall victim to maya, the occasion for illusion. All we may see and worship is samsara or the image of ourselves. We forget our dependence on the infinite to live and believe we have total control over our own destiny. We forget that we are all part of Brahman when we die. The finite is destroyed, but the infinite still remains.

The relationship of nirguna and seguna can be illustrated by light passing through a prism. The white formless light is nirguna. This light passes through the prism, representative of seguna, and manifests into a spectrum of all colors to make samsara. The colors take on different characteristics after passing through the prism, but they still remain of the formless white light. Another example would be a boat. The boat is made of wood, but do we call the boat wood? No, we call it a boat. If the boat is destroyed, it becomes what it once was, wood. Wood as the boat. God as the world.

B. To reach Brahman, one must recognize and shed maya. Maya is the occasion for illusion. The occasions cause our minds and the jiva—our personal souls or the self—to become entangled. This ignorance is the cause of “material experiences” in the corporal world. Humans, under the spell of maya, feel they are limited by the material world. This illusion of Brahman as the seen world results in human emotions like sadness, happiness and fear. The jiva can become bound to maya. When maya constrains the self, then the Atman, or the true Self or God within, is not seen. Maya hides the one Atman and makes it appear as several Atmans, each in a single body. When maya is destroyed, the jiva can see Atman is one in the same as Brahman and ignorance is lost. Karma’s relationship to the jiva is through a person’s deeds. Karma can be defined as the moral law of cause and effect. Karma says that man’s actions have consequences but are arrived at freely. Thus, a jiva has the choice to act out of self-gratification or compassion. Each time one acts out in a negative manner, bad karma will cling to Atman and remain there as a blemish on the Self. A life of good deeds leads to rebirth in a better life, and foul deeds lead to a lower existence.

An example of maya can be demonstrated in a simple story of a man in the woods. One day, a man walking in a forest spots a snake on the ground. The man reels and is ready to stomp the snake dead, but then realizes it is actually a rope. The man calms down and the adrenaline subsides. The snake represents the occasion for illusion. Maya made the man’s adrenaline rush; it masked his vision so that he could only see what he thought was fact. He did not see the truth that there was no snake. His ignorance of what was the case and attention to his own mental construct rendered him physically sick and potentially a fool. Karma can be visualized by a man who buys things to please himself until they eventually surround him. He becomes trapped, as he is no longer himself but the things he owns. The man’s deeds trapped his Atman behind scars and blemishes so that it is too blind to realize its oneness with Brahman.

C. The blemishes of karma stain the soul if one cannot break the world of maya. Moksha must seem very far off. Moksha is liberation from samsara and all the suffering of the material world. An essential path to moksha would be that of the four yogas. Bhakti yoga is the most popular of the four. It is a discipline that consists of constantly loving and remembering God in all mortal actions. To master it, one must love God, not for personal gain but for love’s sake alone. It strives to ultimately connect with manifestations of seguna Brahman.
A follower of bhakti yoga would put God in his or her everyday life by singing or repeating His name, making God a friend to have an internal and loving relationship with, and being totally absorbed in Him. Surrounding oneself with Him is a path to become closer to Him.
Jnana yoga is attaining moksha through the path of knowledge and tries to attain oneness with nirguna Brahman. Jnana yoga is for the reflective minded to look at the self’s actions and liberate the self from the temporal. To reach moksha, a master of jnana yoga must attain the “me, I’m not” way of thinking and see past the self, onto what is past the worldly.
A Jnana yoga disciple would detach himself or herself from the earthly self. One way of doing this is by reflecting on actions in the third-person and analyzing them. For instance, if one were to get angry, one would not let oneself get lost in the anger. Instead, this person would realize that he or she is feeling anger and reflect on why that may be. This will help someone following jnana to detach themselves from the material and feelings brought up by the material.
Karma yoga is focused on liberation through one’s actions as expressed in the Bhavagad Gita. One can attain moksha by performing his or her duties selflessly and without becoming attached to the fruits of labor.
An example of karma yoga in practice would be a person who acts so they are not rewarded by the material but by how their actions are sacrifices for God and do not swell the ego. Those who live modest lives of service represent this behavior.
Raja Yoga is primarily concerned with the mind or the psychophysical. Raja yoga emphasizes the relationship between mind and body and the need to learn self-discipline. The main tool of raja yoga is meditation. To meditate successfully, one must master eight steps, starting with being able to ignore physical and mental distractions and ending with a state of samadhi. Samadhi is the deepest state of meditation and one of the last precursors to moksha.
A raja yoga disciple would attain moksha by disciplining the mind to drop the self and would perfect the paradox of seeing the invisible.



Critique of part A:
Most dualist ideals concerning salvation and “heaven” would not agree in the principle of God living as the world. In Christianity, we are at home when we are with God in heaven, while God has no home on earth. That means God is related externally to the earth. Hindu thought believes we are God before we are born, when we are on earth, and when we die. This directly relates to the Atman, which a dualist has a hard time understanding. The duelist would only consider the jiva and Brahman, leaving the interconnecting Atman out of the equation. Thus we are never a part of God. Therefore, the world and God exist independently. To a duelist “God as the world” is placing too much power in man. If one says “God is me,” then might this person also claim, “I am God”? That may not be the case, but someone could draw that conclusion, because the line between God and man is blurry in Hinduism.