Question: What is the ultimate limit of philosophy?

Sri Chinmoy: When philosophy comes to a point where it can say, “I do not know, I cannot know,” that is the ultimate limit. It is when a philosopher is sincere enough to say, “I do not know and I cannot know because whatever the mind has, I have got from the mind. Now the mind does not have anything more in stock for me.” As long as the mind says, “I know, I can know, I will be able to know,” then it has not yet reached its limit. The ultimate limit is when the mind confesses: “I do not know, and I will not be able to know the unknown or the unknowable because the method that I am using is not good enough for me to enter into another world.”

We often say that ignorance is bliss. In this case, it is absolutely true. When I confess that I do not know the unknowable, that even the unknown I cannot know, then I have reached philosophy’s ultimate limit. At this point, philosophy has to throw itself into the infinite ocean of wisdom and say, “I am throwing myself because I know nothing.” That is the ultimate height. At that time philosophy does not remain philosophy as such. It becomes spirituality. It surrenders to something unknown or unknowable. That unknown is a reality. When we enter into that world, we discover that it is full of light and bliss. But in the beginning we have to take it as the unknown and unknowable.