[Advaita-l] non-negation

[Bhaskar YR]

Any concept of Brahman is only a mental modification, also to be negated.

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Yes, any hypothesis or any idea of brahman is mere mental modification. 
Shastra also says the same thing : yato vAcho nivartante aprApya manasa 
saha..na tatra chakshurgacchati, na vAgacchati nO manaH na vidmO na 
vijAneemO yathaitadanushishyAt, expreses kaTha its helpnessness..but we 
have to know this reality anyway because it is anyway our own svarUpa. 
Hence shruti & smruti advices us : tad vijnAnArthaM sa gurumevAbhitacchet 
samitpANiH shrOtreeyam brahma nishTam, tadviddhi praNipAtena pariprashnena 
sevaya, manasaivedaM AptavyaM neha nAnAsti kiMchana etc.  So, 
shAstrachAryOpadesh, shamadamAdi susamskruta mana is the karaNa what we 
use to know the 'already' known..In this process, we, the advaitins do 
negate all nAma rUpa vishesha anAtma vastu but this negation would not end 
in void (shUnya).  shankara in sUtra bhAshya clarifies this point very 
clearly : neti neti ityasya kO arthaH??  na hi etasmAd brahmaNO 
vyatiriktamasti ityarthaH...taccha darshayati anyat parama pratishiddhaM 
brahmAsmteeti...taccha brahmAvasAne pratishedhe samanjasaM 
bhavati..abhAvasAne tu pratishedhe kiM 'satyasya satyaM ityuccheta ?? 
tasmAd brahmAvasAnOyaM pratishedhaH, na abhAvAsAnaH ityadhyavasyAmaH..The 
essense of the above bhAshya vAkya is that : negation in advaita does not 
negates absolutely everything BUT only everything which has visheshaNa but 
brahmaN which is the ONLY reality without second.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar