tman_and_moksa

SR No.: 020053
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G N Joshi
Publisher: Gujarat University
Publication Year: 1965
Total Pages: 901
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

Page 98

Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Atman and Moka
being beyond all these means of understanding, cannot be known as an object. It cannot be objectified, therefore, the inner Self can be understood only as the unchanging subject of all knowledge. It is the eternal Self-shining principle. Regarding this self-luminous nature of the Self it is further said "The sun does not shine there,, nor the moon and the stars, nor these lightenings and much less this fire. When he shines everything shines after him; by his light all this is lightened."" The Šve'ta s'vatara Upanisad calls it the Sāksin -- the witness that sees everything in its own light. It is the self-shining principle in man by which it manifests itself and also other objects. Thus the Self can be known in mystical intuition. The Self cannot be known in any other way. If it be called unknowable, it is called so in a definite sense. Prof. R. D. Ranade says -- "The Ātman is unknowable because he is the Eternal Subject who knows. How could the Eternal Knower, ask the Upanisads in various places, be an object of knowledge ?” 'The Atman is the Great Being' says the Sve't. Upanişad." Who knows all that is knowable; who can know him who himself knows?” In the Bșh. Upanisad in various passages, we are put in possession of the bold speculations of the philosopher Yājñavalkya “That by whom everything is known, how could he himself be known ? It is impossible to know the knower." "It would not be possible for us to see the seer, to hear the hearer, to think the
S'vet. Up. 6.14. Tr. Max Müller, p. 265; Katha Up. 2.5.15.
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