So our intellect is like a pair of tongs but this pair has three legs – why, when and where i.e. causation, time and space. All the objects can be understood by the intellect but the intellect like the pair of tongs is itself under the control of the governor of universe, the Knower. The intellect has not the power of turning back and catching hold of knower which has it under its control. Intellect cannot put the question, “Why, when or where?” The intellect cannot ask the question.

All the scriptures declare with one voice:-

नेति नेति नेति नेति

Not this, not this, not this.

He is beyond expression, beyond limitations and without name and form.

In Gitanjli Rabindera Nath Tagore wrote about Knower, “I boasted among men that I had known you. They see your pictures, in all works of mine. They come and ask me, “Who is HE”? I know not how to answer them, I say, “Indeed, I cannot tell”. They blame me and they go away in scorn. And you sit there smiling. Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji recites in His holy voice:-

मैं तां सोच सोच के हारा, तेरिया तूँ जाण मालका
तेरिया तूँ जाण मालका, तेरिया तूँ जाण मालका

Intellect failed miserably and thoughts led me nowhere. It is only you who know. Only the Knower knows. Who knows the knower?

The knower is beyond the senses. He is Knowledge and Bliss. When the threefold bondage of knower, knowledge and known ceases, then one realizes Atman. When the delusion of bondage and freedom ceases. One realizes the Atman. No word, no thought, “no deed can know the knower”. Swami Vivekananda in ‘Inspired Talks’ states:-

Atman is infinite without any beginning or end and we or mind or intellect as manifestations are finite and limited. How can the infinite be known by the finite, limited? That knower, Omniscient, Omnipotent and Infinite cannot be known by mind or intellect which are limited but His vision can be experienced in Meditation which is falsely taken as concentration. In fact it is the mind which concentrates and mind cannot know the knower. The adamantine wall standing against His vision is the mind. In order to know the knower, we have to go beyond mind.

Meditation is going beyond mind. It is not controlling the mind because every control results in repression. We are not to wage a war against mind – we are just to watch and watch the mind and its doings. It wanders either into the dead past or unforeseen future. Let it go. Don’t put any blocks in its way. Don’t interfere. Without any stress or strain, watch your mind, watch your thoughts continuously and persistently. Thoughts would start diminishing gradually and they would disappear eventually. Then ‘BHAV’ a peculiar type of ‘BLISS’ would appear which would eventually lead to the vision of knower.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda Ji, knowledge is critical and makes a great fuss over everything but love says, “God will show His real nature to me”. “Thine am I forever. Henceforth, whatever I do, it is Thou doing it, no more is there any me or mine”. Describing Him, Swami Ji explains, “There is but One, the free, the knower, Self without a name or fame or stain.

In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream. The witness He appears as nature, soul”. In meditation when we say, “Become a witness, we are referring to Him who is the witness appearing as nature, soul. He is the only one without any second. He is the knower, knowledge and known.

Without any evaluation, judgment, involvement, interference, appreciation or condemnation, witness to everything happening within the body or mind. In deep meditation, we too become the witness and voice comes from innermost core of heart:-

ये सैर क्या है अजब अनोखा, कि राम मुझ में मैं राम में हूँ
बगैर सूरत गज़ब है जलवा, कि राम मुझ में मैं राम में हूँ

Wonderful is the vision that I am in Him and He is in me. Without form or name, exquisite is the experience that He is in me and I am in Him. This vision, this experience can be had only in meditation. It cannot be put in words.

In meditation when thoughts disappear and BHAV appears, tears roll down the cheeks of aspirant and spontaneously sincere sentiments come out from the heart:-

तेरी याद में रो लेना, यह प्यास हमारी है
विरह का इक आँसू, कई शास्त्रों से भारी है

Bewailing in your memory is our thirst and a tear flowing out of separation is worth more than the scriptures.

Enhance this thirst for Him (the knower) through regular and persistent meditation. Effort for meditation must not be luke-warm of ‘Stop and start’ type. Arguments, theories, doctrines, talks can’t be the ultimate, the final conclusion of analysis the individual unit where there is no further compound. Birth is re-composition and death is de-composition and the final analysis is where knower is known, experienced in meditation. He is “a spectator without a spectacle” says Patanjli.

Meditation is the nectar of all scriptures. We get rid of the clutches of boisterous mind and attain our own mastership and realize that we are all existent, all knowledge and Bliss. Ordinarily mind is our master and we are at his beck and call and there is no intrinsic possibility that we shall ever know the knower. As Gurudev Shri Swami Vishvas Ji recites:-

कर लै दिल दी सफाई, जे दीदार चाहीदा
तूँ जहान तों की लैणा, तैनू यार चाहीदा

Make your heart pure in order to have His vision. This world is of no use without HIM – the knower, the witness, the Self and the effulgent ONE.