Friday, October 28, 2011

The Metaphysics of Nothing

Gita - Ch.II Sloka 16

नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः।
उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभिः।। 2.16 ।।

nāsatō vidyatē bhāvō nābhāvō vidyatē sataḥ.
ubhayōrapi dṛṣṭō.ntastvanayōstattvadarśibhiḥ..2.16..

The unreal hath no being; there is non-being of the real;
the truth about both has been seen by the knowers of
the Truth (the seers of the Essence). - Swami Sivananda

The verse from the Bhagavad Gita (2:16) is part of the argument that Krishna makes to Arjuna for the immortality of the self. As with Parmenides, the point is that something cannot come from nothing or become nothing. We do not get any consideration, however, why a person does not disappear in the same way that wood can be burned into ash and smoke. For that, we need the background of the Upanishads and Vedânta, that the world itself is only a content of consciousness, the consciousness of the ultimate Self, Brahman. As the Chândogya Upanishad says,
Tat tvam asi , "Thou art that."

In death, as in sleep,
"it is not the self that goes away into oblivion, it is the world."

Above is an extract from:  The Metaphysics of Nothing


Gita-slokam commentary by Swami Sivananda:

The changeless, homogeneous Atman or the Self always exists. It is the only solid Reality. This phenomenal world of names and forms is ever changing. Hence it is unreal. The sage or the Jivanmukta is fully aware that the Self always exists and that this world is like a mirage. Through his Gnyanachakshus or the eye of intuition, he directly cognises the Self. This world vanishes for him like the snake in the rope, after it has been seen that only the rope exists. He rejects the names and forms and takes the underlying Essence in all the names and forms, viz., Asti-Bhaati-Priya or Sat-chit-ananda or Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Hence he is a Tattva-darshi or a knower of the Truth or the Essence.
What is changing must be unreal. What is constant or permanent must be real. -- Sivananda

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