Real Cannot Be Described

Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj

It is said, "The tongue of the holy serpent on whom Lord Vishnu is reclining was split." because Reality cannot be described. Words cannot express Reality. The tongue remains useless. The Vedas have stopped trying to describe it by saying, "Neti, Neti" (not this, not this). The word Shruti (Veda) means "Knowledge which is accepted after hearing." After listening, one decides "This is so," and accepted it as true. But this is not the knowledge born out of actual experience. A logical conclusion is not Self-Knowledge, nor "Direct Realization." That Knowledge which the Vedas postulate is believed to be so, and it is conjectured that it may be so, but to simply trust in this concept is not Self-Knowledge.

What is Self-Knowledge? To realize by our who being, to actually feel it within us, as our Self, is the "Knowledge of the Self". "Not other" means that state that has no experience of the "other". Self-Knowledge is not knowledge of anything "other". The state, the nature, the enjoyment of Reality, is the Self. That is the Reality of Self-Knowledge. What is the point of keeping up your adamant attitude when you have Realized? Samartha Ramdas says, "I am false. Everything mine is false. I have no place, no status." Everything is deceptive. Manifestation, Prakruti, speaks and that is deceptive. The Formless, Purusha, is also deceptive. He is also discarded in Reality. Prakruti and Purusha are artificial, false. They are futile. They are not real. Even their names are false. Where nothing remains, to say, "I have known" is false. You may be "knowing", there s nothing wrong in it, but do not say, "I am now having nothing remaining, "because the "I" is still a remnant.