One of my
readers recently asked me whether one can perceive “everything” in the world in
a state of samädhi (meditation). He felt that such a thing is impossible since
there are simply infinitely many things and events that keep happening at any given
instant of time, not to mention those that have happened in the past.
A very interesting
question indeed! Probably, this reader is prompted by such claims made by some
books and authors (e.g. In “The Autobiography of a Yogi”, the author Paramahamsa
Yogananda talks of such experiences).
Long long
ago (almost 2000 years ago), there have been serious debates in ancient India on
this issue between those who claim such a possibility and those who deny such a
possibility. Buddhists claim that Buddha was omniscient who could perceive everything.
But the Mimamsakas (a strong group of Vedic philosophers and staunch opponents
of Buddhists) tried to show in a highly dialectical
way that no one can ever reach such a state. Their arguments were quite
interesting. Some of these included
1. A person
with limited perceptible capabilities can never perceive unlimited number of
things.
2. Even if
it is claimed that the information is perceived in a “supersensory state” like samädhi,
there is no way such a person could have said that in such a state since in
that state a person cannot express himself.
3. And once
he comes out of samädhi, whatever he says is colored by his subjective opinions
and limitations.
4. A person
claiming himself to be omniscient cannot be relied upon since his knowledge
that he is omniscient has a cyclical dependency.
Having said
all this, I have my reasons to believe that a person on the “threshold” of samädhi
can get a glimpse of “everything” if he wishes. But most often than not, such a
person is least interested in knowing any such thing. Regarding the
impossibility of perceiving “everything” merely because there are infinite
things – it is quite elementary knowledge that we can view a TV program from a
particular channel even though there are thousands of Radio waves lingering
around in the air from thousands of other channels. We merely have to tune our
TV to the channel we want and the presence of other waves doesn’t really
matter. But the important question is – “will the desire to tune in really
remain in such a state?” Most probably not.
