Posted on: 08 Jan 2016
Shri Kishore Ram asked: When there is no information about the unimaginable God, why is He referred or called as Prajnanam? I believe Prajnanam means information associated with the Lord.
Shri Swami Replied: You are perfectly correct in noting that when God is called as Prajnanam, it does not mean that God is Prajnanam (excellent special knowledge) itself. It only means the knowledge associated with God. The associating item (bearer of apples) can be addressed as the associated items (apples) since we address the bearer of apples as apples by calling him 'Oh! Apples! Come here'.
As I said just now, in the previous message, the knowledge is of two types: 1) Knowledge of God, which means the information about the material with which God is made of, the size and form in which God exists, etc., This is unimaginable as said in the Veda and the Gita. You can arrive at this conclusion even through scientific logic. God is the generator of the space. Space or anything cannot exist before its generation. God exists before the generation of the space. Hence, space cannot exist in God before its generation. When there is no space, there are no spatial dimensions. It means God is beyond space. We can never imagine anything beyond space. Therefore, God is unimaginable. 2) Knowledge given by God for the sake of humanity, which is imaginable and can be subjected to the logical analysis. This does not mean that we have to analyse the knowledge given by God doubting it. But, the knowledge given by God must be also analysed. The reason is that the knowledge given by God is polluted with the knowledge inserted by ignorant and selfish human scholars. This inserted knowledge also appears as if it is the divine knowledge given by God. It is difficult to isolate the divine knowledge from inserted knowledge since both are mixed in the same scripture. It is just like the difficulty in distinguishing the fake note from the genuine note while counting a bundle of currency notes. Hence, the Reserve Bank that published genuine notes has given a procedure to distinguish both these notes. Similarly, God has given intelligence to us, which is capable of doing logical analysis to distinguish both these types of knowledge. We have to use our intelligence in this context, which is the highest faculty that gives us the right direction. God says in the Veda that intelligence or Buddhi is the driver of the car. Car is the body and senses are the wheels. Steering rod is the mind. The owner of the car is the soul. The safety of the car and owner are totally in the hands of the driver. If the driver is inactive, there is no movement at all. If the driver acts wrongly, the lives of both car and the owner are gone. Therefore, the right direction of the body and the soul totally depends on intelligence or driver only (Buddhimtu Saarathim...). The intelligence does not function due to Tamas. There is no activity at all. If the intelligence functions wrongly due to Rajas or ego, the fate of soul and body are gone. Therefore, the logical analysis is as important as the driver of the car in the journey, whether journey is in worldly way (Pravrutti) or spiritual way (Nivrutti).
Therefore, God remains unimaginable since the first type of knowledge is impossible to us. The Veda also says that scholars try to know about God with the help of the scripture (Tametam Vedaanuvachanena Brahmanaah vividishanti...). Here, the word ‘Vividishanti’ means that they like or attempt to know God. This does not mean that they know God. But, beware, the first type of knowledge also is possible to God because God knows fully about Himself also. Hence, God is called as omniscient (Sarvajna). We talk with reference to ourselves only in this context (Sandarbha), which should never be forgotten. The word ‘Prajnanam’ refers to the second type of knowledge only with reference to us. The same word ‘Prajnanam’ means both types of knowledge with reference to God since God knows about Himself as well as about the knowledge to be given to the humanity for the right direction.