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This is where Vedanta walks up to the Philosopher’s Club and says:

“You guys trying to deduce Brahman like it's a math equation? Nice try — but no cigar. Brahman’s not something you figure out. It’s something you hear, reflect upon, and finally realize.”

Sutra 6: Geyasya tvanavacchhedāt

“But Brahman is not (known) through logic alone, because it is not limited (so it cannot be inferred as a specific thing).”

🧠 Translation in Today’s Words:

“Brahman isn’t the kind of thing you can logically infer like a detective solving a mystery. It’s infinite and beyond boundaries — so it doesn’t fit into any neat logical box. If you want to know Brahman, you need more than logic — you need śruti (revelation).”

Now let's unravel that thread.

🕵️ The Temptation of Logic: Why Inference Looks So Seductive

We humans love patterns. We love connecting dots. And a lot of philosophical schools (especially Nyāya) love to say:

“We don’t need scriptures to tell us about Brahman — we can just infer it. The universe exists → must be a cause → voila, Brahman!”

Sounds reasonable, right?

It’s kind of like saying:
“If I see smoke, I infer there’s fire. So if I see a complex universe, I infer an intelligent cause — Brahman.”

BUT, says Shankara — not so fast!

That logic works when you're dealing with things inside the universe. But Brahman is the substratum of the entire show. It’s not a thing within the system — it’s the ground of being itself.

🎮 Real World Analogy: You Can’t Find the Game Engine From Inside the Game

Imagine you're a character inside a video game. You look around at the mountains, the NPCs, the skybox — and you say:

“Ah, this world is detailed... there must be a cause. Maybe I can deduce the code!”

But can you see the Unity Engine from inside the game world?
Nope. Not unless someone from outside the game reveals it.

That’s Brahman. You can’t figure it out from within Maya (the illusion). It has to be revealed by the one who made the game — and that’s what the Upanishads do.

🧱 Why Inference Breaks Down: Shankara’s Firepower

Shankara gives you the philosophical 1-2 punch:

🔹 1. Brahman Has No Limits (Anavacchheda)

Inference relies on knowing something specific — a quality, a location, a boundary.
But Brahman is limitless. It's not an object, not in space, not in time.

So… how are you going to infer infinity from observing a finite universe?

That’s like tasting one drop of water and trying to infer the depth of the entire ocean.

🔹 2. Inference Depends on Previous Experience

When you see smoke and infer fire, it's because you've seen fire cause smoke before.
But we’ve never experienced anything like Brahman. It's not just a better version of the world — it's a different category entirely.

So inference can't help you when you’re trying to understand something totally outside your frame of reference.

📚 And Yet Again — Enter Śruti: The Ultimate Source

Shankara says:

“Look, I’m not trashing logic. It’s helpful — after you’ve heard the scriptures. But it can’t replace them.”

Logic is like a knife. Super useful for cutting through confusion — but not for growing the fruit of truth.

Only śruti — the sacred, timeless revelations of the Upanishads — can point you directly to Brahman. Logic can help you digest the teaching, but it can’t be the source.

📦 Analogy: Brahman Isn’t in the Box — It Is the Box (and also beyond it)

Trying to infer Brahman is like:

“I found a piece of the box. Let me guess the whole box.”

But Brahman isn’t a piece. It's the whole container — and also that which transcends the container.

To know that, you need revelation, not speculation.

🧘 One More Layer: Why This Matters for You

This Sutra has huge implications for seekers like us.

Because here’s the thing — we love reasoning. In the modern world, we’re trained to think:
“Don’t believe anything without proof.”

Fair. But Shankara is saying:

“Great — but don’t confuse limited proof with ultimate truth. Some things are so big, so subtle, and so infinite, they can only be known by realizing them — not by calculating them.”

That’s Brahman.

📝 TL;DR (Totally Legit, Deep & Real):

Some folks try to infer Brahman using logic alone — Vedanta says: nope.
Why? Because Brahman is infinite, formless, and beyond all attributes — it can’t be pinned down by inference.
Inference depends on boundaries, previous experience, and logical categories. Brahman transcends all that.
You need the Upanishads (śruti) — which are like a spiritual broadcast from the infinite.
Logic is a knife, not the recipe — it helps you understand after you've received the teaching, but it can’t create the truth.
You don’t infer Brahman. You hear, contemplate, meditate, and finally realize — “I am That.”

Next up: Sutra 7, where Shankara takes on people who think Brahman is just another inferred thing — like atoms or subtle forces. It gets more precise, more philosophical, and even more brilliant.

Chapter 1

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