Unknown, Unknowable – In Gita Verse 3.6 One who restrains the senses of action but whose mind dwells on sense objects certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender.
Krishna said in this verse in very simple language, a person of knowledge who is following the scriptures forcing himself to restrain from all the senses. They are masochists. In their mind they always carry the pleasure of senses. They are daydreamers. They are simply imitators, pretenders.
When without knowing it you think you know. You are a pretender….
Once a man came to Buddha, a very cultured, educated man, a pundit. And he asked Buddha a question. Buddha said, ‘Please. Right now I cannot answer.’ The man said, ‘Why can’t you answer? Are you busy or something?’ He was an important man, well-known all over the country, and, of course, he felt offended that Buddha was so busy that he couldn’t give a little time to him.
He said, ‘I have walked thousands of miles.’ In those days there were no trains, nothing, it was really difficult. It was dangerous to travel. He had walked far; he had come from the deep south.
Buddha said, ‘No, that is not the question. I have enough time, but right now you will not be able to receive the answer.’ The pundit asked, ‘What do you mean?’
Buddha said, ‘There are three types of listeners. The first type is like a pot placed upside-down. You can go on answering, nothing will enter him. He is not available. The second type of listener is like a pot with holes in the bottom. It is not upside-down, it is exactly in the right posture, it is as it should be, but it has holes in the bottom. So it looks like it is being filled but that is only momentary. Sooner or later the water flows out and it is again empty. Only apparently, on the surface, does it look like something is entering – nothing really enters because it cannot hold anything. And then there is a third type of listener who has no holes in the bottom and who is not placed like an upside-down pot but is full of filth. Water can come into it but the moment water enters it, it becomes poisoned. And you are all three together, sir. So it is very difficult right now. You are filthy, filthy because you are so knowledgeable. Knowledge is filth. That which you have not known is filth; only that which you have known purifies, transforms, liberates. All that is borrowed is filth. You have stolen it, how can it purify you? Without knowing it you think you know. You are a pretender. You deceive. You are a hypocrite.’
So when a man’s head is like a pot which is full of filth, even if God comes and says something to him, the moment it enters him it will become poisoned. It will not be heard the way it has been told. It will be misinterpreted. It is very difficult to change a learned man because he has already got fixed ideas. He is hiding behind those ideas.
The deepest mystery of existence is the phenomenon of knowledge. You can know everything except your own self. The knower cannot be known because to know something means to reduce it to an object. The very process of knowledge depends on duality. I can know you because I am here, inside, and you are there, outside. You become an object. But I cannot know myself because I cannot make myself an object. I cannot encounter myself in any objective way. I cannot put myself in front of me. And if I could put myself in front of me then that which is put in front of me would not be myself. How can that which can be put in front of me be myself? Really, the inner one which will look at it will remain myself.
Self is subjective and this subjectivity cannot be made objective. Hence, the paradox: that which knows all cannot know itself; that which is the source of all knowledge remains unknowable. If you can understand this, then this verse of Krishna will reveal much. It goes deeper than all that the mystics have said. It says self-knowledge is impossible. You have heard, it has been preached, it has been told everywhere, “Know thyself.” But how can you know yourself? You can know everything other than you. One point will always remain unknown, unknowable. That point is you.
Krishna this verse pointing towards ourselves, how we are cheating and pretending to ourselves. He is addressing Arjuna that you can pretend to others but how can you pretend to yourself.
Tags: Unknowable Unknown
