Everything is known to only Omniscient God, not a finite form with an ego or intellect.
Truth cant be realized through meditation nor Tapas nor Yoga.
The Conversation between Dattatreya and an Accomplished Yogi
A king used to go to Kapil Muni regularly for his darshan and satsang.
Once, when the king was at the Muni’s ashram, Dutta, Skanda, Lomasha
and a few other accomplished yogis came there. An enlightening debate
started among these noble people. A young yogi said:
‘When I engage in yoga, I see my True Self.’
Dutta said, ‘If you see your True Self, that means your True Self is
different from you. Whatever you see in yoga is seen. Therefore
whatever you see in your yoga is the scene and you are the beholder.
In the realm of spirituality, you are just a child. Engage in satsang,
so that your intellect is purified.’
Yogi said, ‘You are correct. I am still a child. I am playing in the
mind, speech and the body and yet I, the sentient being, am
unattached; I don’t feel pleasure and pain; therefore I am a child.
But, with the powers of yoga, I can get out of this body and get into
another, at will. I can grant a boon or swear a curse. I can even
increase or decrease somebody’s lifespan. It is yoga that gives all
such powers. What is achieved from enlightenment?’
Dutta said, ‘O novice fellow! Don’t you feel awkward saying this in an
august assembly like this? A Yogi abandons one body and enters another
and bears all sorts of pains and grief. The enlightening one, while
remaining in the same body, knows all beings from an ant to Lord
Brahma to be his own Self, and thus is established in completeness. He
enjoys simultaneously all that is being enjoyed. He is the pure
consciousness, who rules the entire creation. He is in all forms and
he is beyond all forms. He is omnipotent and at the same time has got
all impotencies in himself. Even while performing all worldly
activities, he knows himself to be a non-doer.
The exalted state attained by an enlightened person, endowed with a
thoroughly perceptible realization of the True Self, is such as cannot
even be cannot even be dreamt of by a yogi, endowed though, as he may
be, with powers like those of granting a boon or swearing a curse.
Yogi said, ‘If I want, I can fly in the sky, on the strength of yoga.’
Dutta said, ‘Birds fly in the sky anyway. What is so great about it?’
Yogi said, ‘A yogi imbibes nectar in every breath, with the japa of
‘so-aham’ and attains bliss.’
Dutta said, ‘O Child! You want happiness from yoga etc., isn’t your
own self the true abode of bliss?
Yogi said, ‘Yoga means being united. Sages like Sanak etc. and even
Lord Brahma merge into the Supreme Being through yoga.’
Dutta said, ‘The Supreme Being in which Lord Brahma and others merge,
is known by the enlightened one as his own self. O yogi! Don’t speak a
lie. What relationship is there between enlightenment and yoga? Yoga
is sadhana and enlightenment is its fruit. There is neither meeting
nor parting in the realm of enlightenment. Yoga is dependent on doer
and is in the form of activity.’
Then Kapil Muni intervened, ‘The yoga of thoroughly perceptible
realization of the True Self is actually the Yoga of knowing all
things. All things cannot be known by yoga of activity. It is only by
knowing the original source of imaginations that we can know all its
imaginations.
In the original source of the True Self, yoga itself is an
imagination. Only by knowing the imaginer, we can know all
imaginations. By the knowledge of dream other dreams cannot be known.
It is only with the knowledge of dreamer that all dreams are known.
Therefore, know yourself to be the original source or dreamer of the
dream of this world.’
The Yogis asked, ‘Who are you?’
Dutta said, ‘I am the beholder of your meditation and non-meditation,
perfection and imperfection.’
The King then enquired, ‘O Dutta! How to realize the True Self?’
Dutta replied, ‘First purify your mind through selfless action. Then
quieten your mind by worshipping either an incarnation of God or the
formless God. Equipped with the prerequisites like detachment etc.
take shelter of the Sadguru, in the manner prescribed by the
scriptures. Through Sadguru’s precepts, know your True Self to be God,
and God to be your own True Self. Attain the thoroughly perceptible
realization of the True Self.
O king! Identification of self with the body is the only obstruction
in Self-realization, in the same way as clouds create the obstruction
to the view of the Sun. In states of waking, dream and deep slumber;
in past, present and future; every part of the illusion including the
mind and the speech is but your dream, wherein You are the
Consciousness Supreme. You are the beholder. You are the Sentient
Divinity that projects this illusion of creations.’
Saunaka, having asked – कस्मिन्नु भगवो विज्ञाते सर्वमिदं विज्ञातं
भवतीति
(" Revered Sir, what is that by the knowing of which all this
becomes known? "), - was told by Angiras that –
द्वे विद्ये वेदितव्ये इति ह् स्म यद्ब्रह्मविदो वदन्ति परा चैवापरा च |
तत्रापरा ऋग्वेदो यजुर्वेदः सामवेदोऽथर्ववेदः शिक्षा कल्पो व्याकरणं
निरुक्तं छन्दो ज्योतिषमिति | अथ परा यया तदक्षरमधिग्म्यते || -
(Mundaka
Upanishad I.i.3-5) there were two different kinds of knowledge to be
acquired – 'the higher knowledge' or Para Vidya (Sanskrit: परा विद्या
)and 'the lower knowledge' or Apara Vidya. The lower knowledge
consists of all textual knowledge - the four Vedas, the science of
pronunciation etc., the code of rituals, grammar, etymology, metre and
astrology. The higher knowledge is by which the immutable and the
imperishable Atman is realized, which knowledge brings about the
direct realization of the Supreme Reality, the source of All. The
knowledge of the Atman is very subtle; it cannot be obtained out of
one’s own effort; the Atman cannot be intuitively apprehended by mere
intellectual equipments. Thus, Angiras draws the distinction between
the way of knowledge and the way of realization, as between opinion
and truth. For understanding this for realizing the Reality the
aspirant must seek a teacher. The teacher who has already realized his
identity with the Atman alone can impart this much sought-after wisdom
on the strength of his own experiences
