A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"He"Thou222 THE ABSOLUTE AND MANIFESTATION.This cannot be done with God, because He is the essenceof our souls ;we cannot throw Him ouU It is said to bethe holiest word in the Yedanta.Saya eshonima aitadatmyam idamsarvam tatsatyam saatmatattvamasi svetaketo.that is the essence of your soul, He is the truth,He is the Self, Thou that art, Svetaketu." Thisis what is meant byart God." You cannot describe Him by any other language. All attempts oflanguage, calling Him father, or brother, or our dearestfriend, are attempts to objectify God, which cannot be. Heis the Eternal subject of everything. I am the subject ofthis chair; I see the chair; so God is the Eternal subjectof my soul. How canyon objectify Him, the essence of yoursouls, the Reality of everything ? Thus,* I would repeat toyou once more, God is neither knowable nor unknowable,but something infinitely higher than these, one with us, andthat which is One is neither knowable, nor unknowable,just as my own self, or your own self. You cannot knowyour own self, you cannot move it out, and make it anobject to look at, because you are that, and cannot separateyourself from it. Neither is it unknowable, because youcannot objectify yourself, and, therefore, you cannot say itis unknowable ;for what is more known than yourself?It is really the centre of our knowledge in exactly the samesense that God is neither unknowable nor known, butinfinitely higher than that, your self.Thus we see, that, first, the question is a condradictionin terms, and secondly, we find that the idea of God inthe Advaita is this Oneness, and, therefore, we cannotobjectify Him, for we are always living and moving inHim, whether we know it or not does not matter.Whatever we do, is always through Him. Now the