Whenever we cannot gather knowledge from direct experience, we gather it from those who are supposed to know about it. Even this indirect method of self-education is not available in Brahma-Vidya, because, as the Lord says “NEITHER THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN NOR THE SEERS KNOW MY ORIGIN.”
Later on (Ibid. X-5) we will have occasion to understand what actually the Lord means by the term the “great seers.” It is not the Men-of-Wisdom, explained in our mythology, the Seven great Rishis starting with Bhrigu and ending with Vasishtha.
The following is a philosophical explanation of the “Seven Seers.”
When the Infinite is seemingly identified with the Total-intellect, or Cosmic-intellect (Mahat), and develops thereby an ego-centric personality of Its own (Ahamkara), It projects Itself, for Its own joy-transactions, as a world of sense objects. These sense objects are called the five tanmatras. The ‘Mahat’, the ‘Ahamkara’ and the five ‘tanmatras’ together constitute the Seven Rishis personified in the Puranas under different names. These Seven Rishis together represent the intellectual and the mental life of man, the EFFICIENT and MATERIAL causes for all creation.
Devas do not literally mean the hosts of heaven; the word Deva rises from its rot, meaning, ‘to illumine’. The Devas, therefore, are the “sense organs” which illumine for us the world-of-objects for our innumerable experiences.
It is, therefore, clear that the Self, the Pure Consciousness, is “THE SOURCE OF ALL THE DEVAS AND THE GREAT RISHIS,” meaning that the Conscious Principle is the substratum for both the physical and mind-intellect life in each one of us. Even though they are thus sustaining themselves in Truth, they cannot ‘KNOW MY ORIGIN.’
So the Consciousness, being the very SUBJECTIVE-Truth in us, can never become an OBJECT-of-perception for the sense organs, or an OBJECT-of-feeling for the mind, or an OBJECT-of-knowing for the intellect.
IS IT THEN TRUE THAT NOBODY CAN COME TO KNOW AND REALISE THE SELF, WHICH IS THE ORIGIN FOR OUR PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE? TO DISPEL THIS FEAR IT IS SAID:
