Brahman With and Without Qualities (Saguṇa & Nirguṇa)
A God you can love, or a reality beyond all names — which is ultimate?
Is the absolute a personal God you can love and worship, or a formless reality beyond all attributes? Hindu thought answers with a distinction: saguṇa Brahman 'with qualities' is the Lord of devotion; nirguṇa Brahman 'without qualities' is the attributeless ground. Which one is ultimate — and whether they are even two things — is one of the deepest fault lines among the schools.
Key passages(14)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Shining by the functions of all the senses, yet without the senses; Absolute, yet sustaining all; devoid of Gunas, yet their experiencer.
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But those also, who worship the Imperishable, the Indefinable, the Unmanifested, the Omnipresent, the Unthinkable, the Unchangeable, the Immovable, the Eternal,—having subdued all the senses, even-min
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There are two forms of Brahman, the material and the immaterial, the mortal and the immortal, the solid and the fluid, sat (being) and tya (that), (i.e. sat-tya, true) .
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
He said: 'O Gargi, the Brahmanas call this the Akshara (the imperishable). It is neither coarse nor fine, neither short nor long, neither red (like fire) nor fluid (like water); it is without shadow,
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Who is without parts, without actions, tranquil, without fault, without taint , the highest bridge to immortality--like a fire that has consumed its fuel.
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'Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the Infinite. Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else, that is the finite. T
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He replied: "O Satyakâma, the syllable Om (AUM) is the highest and also the other Brahman; therefore he who knows it arrives by the same means at one of the two.
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