The Unknowable Reality

The Unknowable Reality 

Contrarian Views On Nature Of Reality

In Indic tradition there are two opposing core views about the nature of Brahmn, the ultimate reality. Sankara, the supporter of monism, argues that just as the plurality experienced by each one of us in the lived world is an illusion, all the apparent qualities of Brahmn are unreal. The apparent multiplicity is because of avidya or ignorance, nescience. Ultimately, Brahmn is an indescribable, attributeless reality. Anything transcendental is Brahmn. The average individual might find Sankara’s absolute monism too subtle and abstract to understand, let alone practice. Even Sankara had to make a distinction between practical, phenomenal and transcendental worlds to explain his notion of Brahmn. Sankara’s Brahmn is nirguna, the impersonal Absolute.

Ramanujacarya rejects Sankara’s monism and argues in support of vishitadvaita or qualified monism that,like Sankara did, upholds that God alone exists but unlike Sankara, argues that God has attributes. Everything that we see and experience is an attribute of God. These attributes are not unreal and temporary as Sankara argued but are real and permanent. Their reality and permanence does not affect the oneness of God because they are dependent on God; they have no existence apart from God. They are modes – prakaras, accessories and controlled aspects of the one Brahmn.

Ramanuja, therefore, propagates a saguna, personal God – Ishwara who has the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and infinite love, manifested in a plurality of forms. The world, with its variety of material forms of existence and individual souls, is not a product of maya, but a real part of Brahmn’s nature. It is the body of the Lord; matter is real, it undergoes real parinama or evolution.

Om Namah Shivay.