Books or learning, the common means to human understanding, are not capable of describing the esoteric knowledge of the reality of the Supreme. This knowledge, known as Brahma Jnana, is referred as realisation or enlightenment. Though many have realised Brahman, their attempts to express this experience only reveal the difficulty and impossibility inherent in the endeavour.
Sri Ramakrishna used to reiterate that Brahman is to be experienced and not to be explained, said Swami Gautamananda in a lecture. Each individual has to realise it in his/her own way. Sri Ramakrishna experienced the paths of Advaita, Visishtadvaita, Dvaita, and those shown by other realised souls and came to the conclusion that the experience of Brahman was true in each of these but that language could never express the truth adequately. That is why it is said that he claimed that Brahman has been undefiled by the tongue of man. He used to give the example of a salt doll that goes into the ocean to measure its depth. It is likely that it sees the ocean and knows its depth, but it never comes back to explain. Vedanta compares this experience of Brahman to that of a dumb man tasting honey.
Krishna praises that person who has realised the Supreme as “unmanifest, unthinkable and unchanging, neither existent nor non-existent.” These paradoxical attributes reflect the two-fold nature of the Supreme, the Nirguna aspect and the Saguna aspect. Only when an individual undergoes this profound spiritual experience, he is able to come to terms with the validity of the Supreme Truth. It is an awareness of a unity of vision that sees no difference between the knowing subject and the known object.
