NETI NETI , A PRFOUND UPANISHADIC DOCTRINE

                                                                                   

 

NETI NETI

 I have been an avid reader of the Upanishads. The Upanishads are part of Vedanta or the last part of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, created between 1500 and 1000 BCE. The Upanishads contain Sruti (revealed truth ) about Brahman (the Ultimate Reality) and the way of Moksha( salvation ). To understand the wisdom of the Upanishads, it is important to understand the meaning of Brahman.

 What is Brahman?

 According to the Upanishads, Brahman is the Universal Spirit; the Ultimate Reality, Pure Consciousness; the One existence; the Absolute; "the unchanging reality amidst and beyond the world", which "cannot be exactly defined". The Upanishads describe Brahman as having two aspects:

1. Para Brahman, Supreme Brahman, is without qualities (Nirguna Brahman)

2.  Brahman qualified by limiting conditions (Saguna Brahman)

 According to the Upanishads, Brahman is the immortal Reality." In describing Brahman as omnipresent, all-pervading, unlimited, infinitely great and infinitely small, the Upanishads only point out that it is absolutely spaceless. Aitareya Upanishad ( 3.1.3) says this:-

 " prajñānam brahma” or ‘Consciousness is Brahman’.

 The Kena Upanishad say this:-

“That which cannot be expressed by speech, but by which speech is expressed—That alone know as Brahman and not that which people here worship. That which cannot be apprehended by the mind, but by which, they say, the mind is apprehended—That alone is known as Brahman and not that which people here worship. That which cannot be perceived by the eye, but by which the eye is perceived—That alone is known as Brahman and not that which people here worship. That which cannot be heard by the ear, but by which the hearing is perceived—that alone is known as Brahman and not that which people here worship.”

 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad ( 2.3.6) says this :-

 “The description of Brahman: 'Not this, not this' (Neti, Neti); for there is no other and more appropriate description than this 'Not this '." Now the designation of Brahman: "The Truth of truth." The vital breath is truth, and It (Brahman) is the Truth of that.”

 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4.2.4 )says this :-

 “sa esa neti nety atma agrhyah na hi grhyate”

(Brahman cannot be grasped by material senses (agrahyah); thus, he is approached by the process of negation.)

Adi Shankara teaches us that Brahman is free from adjuncts and that the function of ‘neti neti’ is to remove the obstructions produced by ignorance. He explains that Neti Neti does not have negation as its purpose; it purports identity. Adi Shankara says this:-

 ‘Brahma satyam jagat mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah”

(Brahman is the only truth, the world is unreal, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman ( the Ultimate Reality ) and Atman, the individual self) .)

 Almost all the Upanishads are fascinating and philosophical in the subject, thought and content. The Upanishads discuss the creation of the universe, immortality, the purpose of existence, psychology,  the doctrine of Karma, Yoga, Brahman and Atman, ethics, metaphysics and the afterlife. Recently, I read the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the first Upanishad written centuries ago by sage Yajnavalkya. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Sage Yajnavalkya, the greatest Upanishadic philosopher, discusses the great doctrine of “neti-neti”, the view that truth can be found only through the negation of all thoughts about it.

Neti Neti: The Via Negativa of the Upanishads

Neti Neti, "not this, not this," is the central method of negation in the Upanishads and later Advaita Vedanta. Found most explicitly in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.3.6 and 3.9.26, the phrase is not a denial of the world but a pedagogical instrument to lead the seeker from identification with the finite to recognition of Brahman, the non-dual Reality.

The Philosophical Context

The Upanishadic sages faced a problem: Brahman cannot be described positively because all language presupposes form, quality, and relation. To say "Brahman is X" is already to limit it. Thus, Yajnavalkya, when asked to define the Self, does not enumerate attributes. He says: Neti Neti. Whatever can be pointed to as an object: body, breath, mind, intellect, pleasure, pain, name, form, is not the Self.

This is not nihilism. It is apophasis. The world is not declared unreal in the sense of non-existence. It is declared an-Atman, not-Self. The purpose is to separate drishya, the seen, from drashta, the Seer.

Shankara systematises this in his commentaries. For him, Neti neti is adhyaropa-apavada: first a provisional superimposition of qualities, then their systematic removal. Like peeling layers of an onion, one negates identification with the five sheaths: annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, and anandamaya. What remains after the last "not this" is not a blank, but sat-chit-ananda or being-consciousness-bliss.

The Method in Practice

Neti Neti is both metaphysical and psychological. Metaphysically, it refuses to locate the Absolute in any category. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says Brahman is "neither gross nor subtle, neither short nor long, without shadow, without darkness." Psychologically, it is a practice of dis-identification. When anxiety arises, one asks: "Am I this thought?" Neti. "Am I this body?" Neti. "Am I  this role?" Neti.

This is why later traditions compared it to the via negativa of Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius. But the Indian version is more empirical. It begins with direct experience: whatever appears and disappears cannot be you, because you are the one to whom appearance appears.

What Remains After Negation

A common misunderstanding is that Neti Neti ends in emptiness. The Upanishads guard against this. After negation comes iti: "this". In Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.13, after listing "not this", Yajnavalkya concludes: the Self is to be seen, heard, reflected upon, and meditated on. Thus, Neti Neti is not the end but the sieve. It removes everything that is borrowed, contingent, and time-bound so that what is self-luminous may be recognised. That is why Shankara calls Brahman Dvayam-prakasha: self-evident. You cannot define it, but you cannot deny the awareness in which the denial occurs.

Contemporary Relevance

In modern terms, Neti Neti anticipates critiques of essentialism. It says identity is not a substance but a process of clinging. In psychology, it parallels defusion in ACT therapy: you are not your thoughts. In ethics, it undercuts ego-based violence: if "I" am not this nationality, caste, or ideology, then the other cannot be reduced to an object. At the same time, it is radically demanding. To say "not this" to every comfort of identity requires what Camus would call revolt and what Sri Krishna would call Vairagya. It is not passive withdrawal but lucid discrimination or Viveka.

Conclusion

Neti Neti is not a doctrine. It is a gesture. It points with two fingers and then withdraws the hand. It says: whatever you can grasp, whatever you can name, whatever you can lose, that is not it. And in that relentless refusal, the seeker is turned back upon the one thing that cannot be negated: the awareness that is doing the negating. In that turn, the question "What is Brahman?" dissolves, because the questioner is seen to be Brahman. Not this. Not this. And yet, this.

( Avtar Mota )

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