Introducing the concept
As you go through these pages, you will come across the terms Pure Consciousness, Pure Subject, or ‘Nirguna’ multiple times. And in our pages on Isvara and Bhakti Yoga, you would have been introduced to the Vedantic idea of God or Isvara. Brahman is often termed Nirguna - in other words, without any properties or attributes. And Isvara is often called, in Vedanta, ‘Saguna Brahman, in other words Brahman with - or conditioned by - properties.
The twin concepts of Nirguna-Saguna can lead some students and seekers to confusion. The Gods of most of the other religions from around the world correspond to what we call Saguna Brahman; there is no Saguna-Nirguna dichotomy in most religions, since they do not have the concept of the Nirguna Absolute. Nirguna Brahman is a uniquely Advaitic phenomenon.
And indeed, the concept of a property-less (i.e. Nirguna) Reality has resulted in Advaita Vedanta facing multiple philosophical and theological attacks from other schools, both from within Hinduism and outside. These attacks are perhaps coming due to the lack of a full understanding of the concept.
The question that might immediately come when one is introduced to the idea of Nirguna Brahman is - if something does not have any properties (or attributes, or qualities), does that make it… nothing? This is also, in essence, the attack that Nirguna Brahman faces from other schools of Vedanta. A quality-less Brahman is as good as nothing, they say. How is your Nirguna any different from the Shunya (emptiness) of the Buddhists, they ask.
Let us address these questions. It is essential for seekers on this path to understand how these two complement each other - Nirguna and Saguna, the quality-less and the quality-filled, the unmanifest Absolute and the manifest Bhagavan.
Going a little deeper
In Vedantic literature, Saguna Brahman is also called Apara Brahman, or the ‘lower’ Brahman, whereas Nirguna Brahman is called Para Brahman, or the ‘Higher or Ultimate Brahman’. Does this mean Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman are two different Beings?
Adi Shankaracharya makes it clear that there is only Brahman, which is One and without a second (ekameva advitiya). When this Brahman is taught by words like asthulam (not gross), or by processes of inquiry like ‘Neti, neti’ (‘Not this, not this’), in other words when this Brahman is approached by negating all names of forms created by Avidya, we arrive at Nirguna or Para Brahman. When this same Brahman is taught as qualified by specific features for the purposes of meditation, love, and worship, we obtain the Saguna or Apara Brahman.
These are simply two ways of looking at the same Reality. Brahman is without qualities because it is the innermost Self; It is Consciousness itself. All qualities or gunas appear to the Self - to Consciousness - and thus cannot be part of the Self. If you have reached this page after systematically going through the foundational concepts of the Advaita philosophy, you must have begun to understand the clear distinction between Self and not-Self, between Subject and Object. There is no possibility of a quality being mixed up with Consciousness, since any quality requires Consciousness to witness it. Consciousness - the pure Subject, the Atman, Nirguna Brahman - sits outside of all qualities, as the constant Witness to the coming and going of qualities.
Thus the technically correct way of describing Brahman is Nirguna, by negating all that it is not. But Nirguna Brahman is abstract and not always easy to meditate on by spiritual seekers. Thus Nirguna Brahman, in a sense, descends into the world that we inhabit, as the God of this universe of names and forms, so that we may grasp and approach It. The same Brahman, when it is conceived as endowed with attributes, is said to be the Saguna Brahman[1]. According to Adi Shankaracharya, Saguna Brahman is neither distinct from nor inferior to Nirguna Brahman in any way.
Saguna Brahman can be seen as the Nirguna Absolute presented to us via the filters of space-time-causality, in other words via the framework of Maya. In Reality we are Brahman, but we seem to consider ourselves as limited beings; we see ourselves via the filter of space-time-causality. Thus when we need to meditate on the Absolute, we need a corresponding ‘filtered’ version of It that we can grasp.
A question that often arises is that, if Brahman is ultimately Nirguna, does this not make It ‘powerless’? What good is a God without any qualities or powers, some might wonder.
In a sense, yes indeed, Brahman is without powers, but that is because Nirguna or Para Brahman transcends all limitations such as powers. Qualities by their very definition apply within the manifest world, and they imply limitation; the very fact that I have quality A means that I do not have quality B. The very fact that I have power means that there is a possibility of someone or something having more power; the very fact that I have power means that I am trapped within the limited, material world where concepts like power are valid. Brahman transcends all of these, as the substratum or the Witness of all powers.
The Jnani realizes that power is also a limitation, it is part of the mirage that is the World. The Reality that shines on the World has no need for power or qualities.
Tying the threads together
‘My idea is that what you call a Personal God [Saguna Brahman] is the same as the Impersonal Being [Nirguna Brahman],’ Swami Vivekananda said, ‘Personal and Impersonal God at the same time. We are personalized impersonal beings.[2]’
Sri Ramakrishna too highlighted this complementarity - ‘When the Godhead is thought of as creating, preserving, and destroying, It is known as the Personal God, Saguna Brahman, or the Primal Energy, Adyasakti. Again, when It is thought of as beyond the three gunas, then It is called the Attributeless Reality, Nirguna Brahman, beyond speech and thought; this is the Supreme Brahman, Para Brahman.[3]’
‘Are there two Gods,’ Swami Vivekananda asks, ‘the “Not this, not this”, the Sat-chit-ananda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta?’
He responds, ‘No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also called the God of Love, the impersonal and the personal in one. It has always been understood that the Personal God worshiped by the Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman.’
Swami Vivekananda gives the example of Prahalada, the beloved Bhakta whose story of unflinching devotion to Narayana is passed down to all children in India. ‘When Prahlada forgot himself, he found neither the universe nor its cause; all was to him one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and form [Nirguna Brahman]; but as soon as he remembered that he was Prahalada, there was the universe before him and with him and with it the Lord of the universe [Saguna Brahman or Narayana].[4]’
As long as we consider ourselves to exist, in name and form, as individuals, then Saguna Brahman is very real; it is only when we completely let go of any identification of the limited self, the Acharyas tell us, it is only when we completely melt the ego, that we can transcend Saguna Brahman.
Swami Nikhilananda writes, ‘As the Lord of Maya, It is Isvara; and in Its true nature, It is Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss. The same Brahman, again, appears as the universe bound by the causal chain. It is the Supreme Brahman - birthless, deathless, attributeless, supersensuous, supramental, undifferentiated, and free from hunger, thirst, and the rest - that appears, through Maya, as the phenomenal universe. It is Brahman, again, who is worshiped by spiritual aspirants as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, and the other deities.[5]’
Saguna and Nirguna - the Relative and the Absolute, the Personal and the Impersonal, Isvara and Brahman - as two sides of the same coin. This gives Advaita Vedanta, and Hinduism itself which has Advaita as its spinal cord, a remarkable robustness and broad-mindedness. We can have multiple conceptions of the Saguna Brahman that are all reflections of the same Nirguna Brahman. Nirguna Brahman has appeared to sages and devotees down the ages in these particular forms, as the Gods and Goddesses that we worship in our homes and temples.
Reflect on this
Earlier in this piece we had mentioned one of the common attacks against Advaita Vedanta’s conception of the Nirguna Brahman, which is that a property-less Brahman collapses into ‘nothing’. Would this not make Brahman non-existent, opponents ask.
Can you see why this attack does not hold ground? Adi Shankaracharya writes in the introduction to his commentary on the Svetasvatara Upanishad, ‘Brahman… is described by the negation of attributes; it is therefore eternally real’. Shankara is saying that only That is real which can only be described by the negation of attributes; in other words only the Nirguna can be eternally real. How so?
Read our pages on ‘Shunyata and Poornam’ and ‘Sushupti’ to get a better understanding of this. Ask yourself - let us, for a moment, assume that Brahman is ‘nothing’; then to What or to Whom does this ‘nothing’ appear?