Negative Theology of the Yogavasistha and the Lankavatara Sutra

The way of negation is not unfamiliar to students and scholars' of Indian thought. The practice of neti neti in the Advaita Vedanta tradition serves. as a means to negate all that is not Brahman. Within' the Yoga tradition the definition of yoga is essentially negative, requiring the prevention of the modification of consciousness. (citta vyttinirodlta), as is the practice of yoga as given in the ascending stages of samadhi. The Madhyamika dialectic, introduced by .Nagarjuna, presents a fourfold negation of all that is held to exist and even negates its negation. As early as the Chandogya Upaniad, the story of Svetaketu and his father Uddalaka Aruni provides examples of a way of negation, particularly in the dissection of a fig down to its invisible and indivisible "essence". In each of these practices, the method is clearly negative : the absolute of each system is spoken in terms of what it is not. Each systematically denies all that is represented by language until the silence of the absolute is found.