Hinduism: Details about 'Neti Neti'
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In Hinduism, and in particular Jnana Yoga, 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"). 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 succintly expresses the standpoint of negative theology. The significance of neti netiIn Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya is questioned by his students to describe God. He states "It is not this and it is not that" (neti, neti). Thus, God is not real as we are real, nor is He unreal. He is not living in the sense humans live, nor is he dead. He is not compassionate as we use the term, nor is he 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 that either". In the end, the student must transcend words to understand the nature of the Divine. In this sense, neti-neti is not a denial. Rather, it is an assertation that whatever the Divine may be, when we attempt to capture it in human words, we must inevitably fall short, because we are limited in understanding, and words are limited in ability to express the transcendent.
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