Society will always persuade you to acquire knowledge by opening schools and colleges. They are just trying to fill your mind with various aspects about the world, about this, about that. This is good, this is bad. This is useful, this is waste.

Does this serve any purpose? Yes… it does. It is a tool to perform our daily obligations in this world in a better and organised manner. If I have knowledge about sunset or sunrise, I can manage my worldly affairs according to that time. If I have proper knowledge about my field of work, say medicine, engineering, commerce etc., I can give better performance in daily routine official jobs.

But, have you taken birth only for these daily routine activities? Think about it. The whole knowledge of the world will not be able to give an answer to this question. Even then you keep on repeating the same things, on and on. Why? It is not your fault. You have been trained to do so from your childhood,because society wants you to be like that, biological machines.

Machines that think they have knowledge, they know about this and that. But ‘knowing about’ is one thing and ‘knowing’ is another. The difference lies in firsthand experiencing or accepting someone else’s version.

You know about water, its properties, its benefits, its various shapes, but it cannot quench your thirst unless you drink it. All the books and other mediums of knowledge cannot quench your thirst. They can only elaborate the properties of an object. They can say that Sun gives light but how does a blind person know about light. It is of no use to teach him about light because he cannot experience it. He will never understand it.

Have you ever thought that whatever you are being taught in the name of knowledge is already past, experience and discovery of someone else. It cannot be real. If you want to know what is hot, then any number of books cannot give you experience unless you touch a hot object. As soon as you put your hand in fire, you will understand what is hot. Second hand experiences are just like collecting the dead corpses inyour mind.

Society is always busy imparting the past on to you. My function is just the opposite of that.I have to clean the garbage collected by you in your mind. Unless you clean the past, you cannot be in the present and unless you are in the present, you cannot know because onlythe present is‘knowing’. It is not good or bad, it is not happy or sad, it is not even life or death, it is just present, being in present. A state of no mind, a state of not knowing, all second hand experience has to be shunted out of your mind to be in present. Present is your true nature, the real knowing, the insight.

Mind has its own purpose but the real insight, the real experience is of the heart. Remember when you were a child, your parents told you not to touch fire as it would burn your hand but I haven’t yet come across a child who hasn’t touched fire. He wants to know, he doesn’t want to depend on second hand experience. As he grows, the society tells him that you didn’t follow our advice and see, your hand is burnt. The society forces the child not to experience and just rely on the books and older norms. Slowly, he is converted into a biological machine and stuffed with dead knowledge.

One has to understand that knowledge is artificial and knowing is real, inbuilt in the consciousness, that has to be experienced in the present. Do birds need knowledge to fly? Do fish need knowledge to swim? Does aseed need knowledge to grow into a tree? Do flowers need knowledge to blossom? Does your heart need knowledge to beat? Do you need knowledge to breathe?

All this is‘knowing’, not knowledge. You have been told again and again that ‘Knowledge is power’, but the truth is that knowledge is only a collection of information in an organised manner, nothing else. It is only a play for the mind, an intellectual process. Knowing is power, knowing is Spiritual, your true nature. Power rests only with the owner.While knowing, you are the owner of that experience. It is an irony that after acquiring so called worldly knowledge, one forgets knowing. So the misery…

Mind has nothing to do with knowing. It moves in time and space, so it is interested only in knowledge, of past and future. It can never be in present. You have to be in a no mind state to be in present. Only there, knowing can happen, it cannot be learnt from books and teachers. It is your own connection with the Divine and can be experienced only through knowing the Self. A master can only guide you to know thy Self. Knowledge of the world is acquired and limited but knowing of soul is eternal and infinite.

Knowledge may be a good tool for doing worldly affairs efficiently, but it can be no substitute to knowing, which is your true nature.It can only be known through ‘Atambodh’, meditating on Self.