Neti neti

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In Hinduism, and in particular Jnana Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, neti neti is a chant or mantra, meaning "not this, not this", or "neither this, nor that" (neti is sandhi from na iti "not so").

Adi Shankara was one of the foremost Advaita philosophers who advocated the neti-neti approach.

The Upanishads talk of a supreme existence, an impersonal oversoul, called Brahman, which goes beyond western-definitions of a personal God. Brahman by definition, encompasses all reality, and is therefore not completely describable. Neti-neti is therefore held as the aproach to understand the concept of Brahman without using affirmative (and thereby inadequate) definitions or descriptions of Brahman.

The purpose of the exercise is to negate conscious rationalisations, and other distractions from the purpose of a meditation. It is also a sage view on the nature of the Divine, and especially on the attempts to capture and describe the essence of God. In this respect, the phrase succinctly expresses the standpoint of negative theology.

[edit] The significance of neti neti

In Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya is questioned by his students to describe God. He states "The Divine is not this and it is not that" (neti, neti).

Thus, the Divine is not real as we are real, nor is it unreal. The divine is not living in the sense humans live, nor is it dead. The Divine is not compassionate as we use the term, nor is it uncompassionate. And so on. We can never truly define God in words. All we can do is say, it isn't this, but also, it isn't t