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bhanvar gupha (the whirling cave). There it experiences the sound of Truth (sat), which is the Original Sound. This Sound embodies the essence of the spiritual preceptor. O Practitioner! Hold on to that sound and become one with that True Sound.
In the Upanishads there are multiple references to Emptiness or Space (shunya). In the fourth Brahmana of the Mandala Brahmanopanishad it is said:
There are five kinds of celestial Shunya (ether) which are increasingly more subtle: akasham, parakasham, Mahakasham, Suryakasham and Parmakasham. The infinite light permeates all of these akasham, but the Parmakasham is ineffable and is brimming with infinite bliss. It is the essential element.
When one considers all these descriptions of Shunya (emptiness or void), the question arises whether the composers of the Upanishads and the saints were atheists. The univocal response is, of course, that they are not atheists. How then could one logically consider the Buddha to be an atheist? The Buddha regularly speaks of both nirvana and Shunya in almost identical terminology, and yet he is accused of atheism solely on the basis of his silence on this question about the nature of God.
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