A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c8.s4.6

c8.s4.6

(ii) There is, however, another side to the subject of the unknowability of Ātman. The Ātman is unknowable because He is the Eternal Subject who knows. How could the Eternal Knower, ask the Upanishads in various places, be an object of knowledge? "The Ātman is the Great Being," says the Śvetāśvatara Upanishad "who knows all that is knowable; who can know him who himself knows?" In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, 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 thinker, and to apprehend him by whom everything is apprehended." " He is the eternal seer without himself being seen ; he is the eternal hearer without himself being heard ; he is the only thinker without himself being thought ; he is the only comprehender without any one to comprehend him ; beyond him there is no seer, beyond him there is no hearer, beyond him there is no thinker, beyond him there is no being who comprehends"(S. 13. b.) We thus see that the question of the unknowability of Ātman has another aspect also, namely, that He is unknowable because He is the Eternal Subject of knowledge, and cannot be an object of knowledge to another beside Him.