Someone once argued with me that they did not believe in “infinite.”  They felt that everything was finite.  If something is finite, there is a place where it is not.  If there is a place where it does not exist, then it does not last forever.

If something does not last forever, it is not REAL.  It is only a transient phase.  Something transient has no existence.  It is only a reflection of something which does last forever.  To know reality, is to know what it is that lasts forever.

To reach immortality, or to gain eternal life is to know that which lasts forever.  It cannot be an idea, for ideas require some dialogue or word to conceptualize or classify.  If it can be classified it has boundaries or limitations.

That which lasts forever and is in all places and at all times is the infinite.  This is the one thing that is considered REAL in Advaita Vedanta.  To know that which exists in all places and all times is to know the infinite and the forever.

Yet one cannot truly know that which lasts forever because then there are two things again-The Knower, and the Known.  Two things mean that there are places where one exists and the other does not.  Again we have duality, or finitude.

Already some of you will feel your head spinning.  This feeling of disorientation is that of the finite mind trying to know the infinite or Absolute.  The Taittireya Upanisad delineates what it means to “know the infinite,” or to “become forever.”

It classifies “the experience of knowing,” as the nature of merging with the infinite.  In this case, it is that feeling of knowing what is, where the subject merges with the object.  The goal of human experience is to become one with this feeling at all times.

The challenge for the modern human is to stay in this state of knowing while experiencing the entire phenomenal word.  It means to remain centered in bliss while the dynamic world around appears to change.