Knowledge

In the world there have been men who have been considered very rich in knowledge-Socrates, Plato, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Francis Bacon, Da Vinci, Einstein, etc. History has afforded us innumerable geniuses whose thoughts have profoundly affected human civilization and who have been considered very expert from the human point of view. But it is remarkable that in their own eyes they feel like dwarfs before the great storehouse of knowledge which governs nature. Isaac Newton used to consider himself to be no more than a little boy playing on the seashore and observing multicolored shells washed up on the beach. The shells were all he knew of what inhabited the inaccessible depths of that great ocean.

So no man can claim to have all knowledge. Even if a man has all knowledge about his particular field (indeed the more a man pursues a subject the more he realizes he knows nothing about it), he is still ignorant of other fields of knowledge. No one knows everything in this material world. Even the demigods, whose knowledge is fantastic from the human point of view have limited knowledge. Lord Brahma, for instance, creates this universe and so thoroughly knows every object in it, but when he rose out of the lotus flower springing from the navel of the Maha-Visnu, he looked about in total confusion and began to meditate to find out what he was, where he was, and why he was. So even his knowledge is limited. Lord Krsna says, "Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin, for, in every respect, I am the source of the demigods and sages." (Gita, 10.2)

It is only Krsna, the Supreme Lord, who has total knowledge of everything. He is the Self seated in the hearts of all. He is in the heart of the great Brahma and in the heart of the tiny atom. "O scion of Bharata, you should understand that I am also the knower in all bodies; and to understand this body and its owner is called knowledge; that is My opinion." (Gita, 13.2) The living entity is the knower of his particular body, but Lord Krsna is the supreme knower, proprietor and dweller in all bodies. Therefore, He is the super knower, the omniscient, the embodiment of total knowledge. He is both the knower and that which is to be known. He is addressed by Arjuna: "Knowing everything, You are all that is knowable." (Gita, 11.38)