And here we are met by statements that God is unknowable and imperceptible to our senses. He is past all thought and speech.

A Difficulty In Reaching The Goal 308

(Tirumantra).

And yet the upanishats say that when men should roll up the sky like a hide, then only without knowing Siva, there could be an end of pain.

And St. Arul Nandi Sivacharyar.states the difficulty thus: "If God is unknowable, then there can be no benefit from Him. He can never pervade us, neither can we unite with him in Moksha. He cannot perform the pancha-krityas for our benefit. His existence will be like that of the flowers of the sky and of the rope formed of the hairs of the tortoise.

And yet it must stand to reason that we cannot possibly know him if his nature is as we have described above. The moment we assert that we can know him, we assert that he becomes an object of our cognition, and as all Psychologists, Hindu and European, are agreed, all objects of cognition are what is called Achit or Asat or matter. Here is St. Arul Nandi's' statement: "If you ask whether God is an object of knowledge or not, then know, if He is an object of knowledge, He will become Achit and Asat. All objects of cognition are achit; all objects of cognition come into being and are destroyed (being bound by time), they divide themselves into the worlds, bodies and organs (being bound by space) and enjoyments. They are identified at one time by the intelligence as itself (bandha) and at another time (in moksha) are seen as separate; and they are all products of Maya. Hence all such are achit or non-intelligent or Asat (other than sat)."

As God is spoken of as the inner Ruler and Soul of Soul, whose body the Soul is, the knowing Soul is itself in the position of object to the True subject God, and the thinking mind cannot itself think thought, much less can the object perceive or think the subject.

And if he cannot be known, He must be a non-entity, argues St. Arul Nandi. And this exactly is the position which Paul Carus takes in his pamphlet on the "Idea of God." His argument is exactly that of Saint Arul Nandi, that if God is knowable, he can only be known as an object, as matter, which will be absurd. But Paul Carus would however retain God as an idea, or ideal, an abstract thing as redness or whiteness, a beautiful fantasy which will be useful. But as against this view, it is positively asserted by Saint Arul Nandi that He is not a non-entity and that He is Sat and Chit. As He is (chit, He is not knowable, and yet He is a positive fact.

How is then this psychological difficulty to be got over?