Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

BRAHMA, OR BRAHMAN

A symbol of the Supreme Spirit,- the One Absolute Being; or, it may be, the manifest God,-the Higher Self of all.

"In the beginning Brahman was all This. He was one and infinite; infinite above and below and everywhere infinite. . . . The Highest Self is not to be fixed, he is unlimited, unborn, not to be reasoned about, not to be conceived. He is like the ether (everywhere), and at the destruction of the universe, he alone is awake."-Mait. Upanishad, VI. 20.

Prior to the commencement of the cycle of life, the Infinite Self was unmanifest in time and space. Absolute being had not outbreathed the Divine Life. The Highest Self had not limited himself and taken birth in a universe-a solar system. He is inconceivable and at the root of all; and when the manifested Life is indrawn and the cycle ends, He alone persists.

“One of the greatest favours of God, bestowed transiently upon the soul in this life, is its ability to see so distinctly, and to feel so profoundly, that . . . it cannot comprehend Him at all. These souls are herein, in some degree, like to the souls in heaven, where they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is infinitely incomprehensible for those that have the less clear vision, do not perceive so distinctly as the others how greatly He transcends their vision." - ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, A Spiritual Canticle.

"The question whether, on mystical principles, we can know God, must be answered by drawing, with Eckhart, a distinction between the Godhead and God. Our knowledge must be of God, not of the Godhead, and the God of religion is not the Absolute, but the highest form under which the Absolute can manifest Himself to finite creatures in various stages of imperfection. The God of religion is not the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, for life without change is a state of which we have no experience, but the Father revealed by the Son. No man hath seen God at any time. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.'" - W. R. INGE, Paddock Lectures, p. 11.

"I have had glimpses of an all-pervading Intelligence and Power, a curiously intense apprehension of a life, a mind, a will higher than anything that we ordinarily know under these terms, and the fulfilment of them all, absolutely all-inclusive, subject to no vicissitudes, far above all flux and change, and yet comprehending all change within its own majestic stillness and completeness.' - R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., Being and Becoming.

“It is said: 'within this body (Brahme-pura) Brahme's abode, is a little lotus, a dwelling within which is a (dahara) small vacuity occupied by ether (ácasá). What that is within (the heart's ventricle) is to be inquired, and should be known.' A question is here raised, whether that 'ether' within the ventricle of the heart be the etherial element, or the individual sensitive soul, or the Supreme One; and it is pronounced from the context, that the Supreme Being is here meant." - H. T. COLE- BROOKE, Essays, p. 221.

See Also

ABSOLUTE
AKASA
AparâGita
ARHAT
ATMAN
FATHER
GODHEAD
HEART
LOTUS
OGDOAD
PATH (two-fold)
SARASVATI
SEASONS
SLEEPING
TASTE
TRINITY, HOLY
UNION
VIBHU
VIRAJ