CTMU

[Anand Hudli]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:08:41 -0500, Sankaran Kartik Jayanarayanan
<kartik at ECE.UTEXAS.EDU> wrote:

>On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Anand Hudli wrote:
>
>
>>  No, that is not correct. In the final analysis, advaita says that God
>>  is none other than the Self.
>
>advaita says so by reliance upon shruti.
>
>> And the Self does not have to be proved!
>>  No one doubts "Do I exist or not?". So God exists!
>>
>
>I don't see how you can say that the Self is *infinite*.
>
>The definition of God or Brahman is "Being with no limits." (from the
>root "bR^iH" + "man"; or as the origin of the world, vide the second verse
>of the brahma suutras). God is an infinite being.
>
>The Self or Atman is defined as that which is referred to by the word 'I'.
>
>To make an equation between the two, i.e, God = Self, you need shruti.
>To paraphrase, to claim that the Self exists is one thing, but to claim
>that it is infinite is something else.

 To clarify, I am not saying that advaita can be proved without using
 the shruti. In fact, I had explicitly argued against such a position
 in 1997 (archives for May-June 1997). What I am trying to say here is
 that the *definition* of God is not the same to everyone. You might
 define God as infinite but some other school may say a particular tree
 is God! Some may say a particular image itself is God, to some even a
 particular dog is God, to some a particular person in flesh and blood is
 God, and so on. None of these is infinite and when you ask why this God
 is not infinite and how this God can create this world, they can easily
 defend their position saying that it is God's inconceivable potency,
 lIlA, citing some prophecies, etc. Some people consider "love"
 to be God. Love is God, so God needs no proof, being experienced
 by all.

 I am taking God not just in the orthodox Indian context but in a
 broader context since you yourself introduced such a broad context
 by referring to a person with the highest IQ who claims to have
 logically proved God. And I believe that it is not possible to
 come up with a definition of God that will satisfy everyone.
 Since there is no universally agreed upon definition of God, any
 proof of God will be limited to a certain definition of God only.
 This means that any proof of God is a limited proof. I would like
 to see any corrections to this belief of mine.

Anand

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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