neti

Updated: May 10, 2025

It is unknowable because since it is essentially the knowing subject it can be known only by itself: it can never become the object of knowledge and language is inadequate to describe it. All that can be said of it is neti, neti, that is no, no: it is not anything which we try to predicate of it.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2

Whatever you say of it, the answer must be neti, neti, it is not like that ; that is to say, the ordinary language used about the individual soul is not applicable to the Âtman or to the human soul when regarded as identical with it.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1