Infinity

(camp Rishikesh) I've written some about this amazing concept called infinity earlier, but recently, I'd another angle of thought for this. Prof. Chowdhari's (our Indian philosophy professor at YVFA) lecture made me wonder on this aspect. He questioned the difference between insentients or animals and human beings. While the discussion furthered into intellect and awareness, there's an interesting point that Chowdhariji made: animals have intelligence and so do we, but they just know things, while we know that we know! Mind the play of words here. So beautifully put!

That is, when you think you know something, you also know that you know it. To put in other words, when one starts analyzing the understanding, he becomes aware that he is understanding. This other entity that watches over the understanding is the Self. When you target your attention to the watching-over-entity aka drashTa aka seer aka subject aka knower aka Self, another such takes over and watches you as the intellect or the object! Hah! This goes on endlessly, driving even the meditative beings over the cliff into ad infinitum.

In another lecture of Religious Consciousness, said Swami Atmaswarupananda to my satisfaction, the Self is declared as unknowable in the scriptures. Still, the humans think as to say "I'll know the unknowable and I'll know it now". Finally, they've to arrive at the here-and-now after having gone a full circle. Shastras declare That/Self to be unknowable, as purNa. How else can It be declared if Shankara himself said its to be (un)known in the neti neti. If you know it, it'll not only remain unknowable, it'll also become an object; then a question would arise as "to whom was it an object?" Any answer to this question will have the answer become the knower and then Itself becoming unknowable!

The knower of knowledge cannot be known!!!