"Not This, Not This" (Neti-Neti)
Strip away everything you can name — and what cannot be denied is your true self.
'Neti-neti' means 'not this, not this.' Because the ultimate reality cannot be captured by any concept, the Upaniṣads teach it by negation: it is not the body, not the mind, not any object you could point to. By peeling away everything the self is not, the seeker is pointed toward what cannot be named. It is both a teaching method and a contemplative practice.
How it traveled
- VivekacūḍāmaṇiŚṛṅgeri (Sringeri) · 1400explains
Key passages(16)
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
Sakalya said: 'And in what dost thou (thy body) and the Self (thy heart) abide?' Yagnavalkya said: 'In the Prana (breath).' Sakalya said: 'In what does the Prana abide?' Yagnavalkya said: In the Apana
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Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
When the light has risen , there is no day, no night, neither existence nor non-existence ; Siva (the blessed) alone is there. That is the eternal, the adorable light of Savitri ,--and the ancient wis
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Nakiketas said: "That which thou seest as neither this nor that, as neither effect nor cause, as neither past nor future, tell me that."
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He who has perceived that which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, without taste, eternal, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the Great, and unchangeable,
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It stirs and it stirs not; it is far, and likewise near. It is inside of all this, and it is outside of all this.
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Grasping without hands, hasting without feet, he sees without eyes, he hears without ears. He knows what can be known, but no one knows him; they call him the first, the great person (purusha).
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