Be Wise – In Gita Verse 9.14 Always chanting My glories, endeavoring with great determination, bowing down before Me, these great souls perpetually worship Me with devotion.
Krishna is giving us clarity on how to be innocent and not ignorant. Person who is innocent has the capacity to take the knowledge and transform it to the knowing. Person who has a collection of knowledge but does not transform it; to knowing, wisdom is ignorant according to Krishna.
Wisdom is not knowledge. The knowledgeable person cannot see it, he is blind. Only the innocent person can see it, only a child, one who knows nothing, one who functions from the state of not knowing, can know what wisdom is. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge, not at all; it has something to do with innocence. Something of the purity of the heart is a must; something of the emptiness of being is needed for wisdom to grow.
“Only those who are like small children will be able to enter into my kingdom of God.” Yes, Jesus is right.
Knowledge comes from without, wisdom wells up within. Knowledge is borrowed, wisdom is original. Wisdom is your insight into existence – not Buddha’s insight, not Atisha’s insight, not Osho’s insight, but your insight, absolutely your insight into existence.
When you are able to see with no dust of knowledge on the mirror of your soul, when your soul is without any dust of knowledge, when it is just a mirror, it reflects that which is. That is wisdom. That reflecting of that which is, is wisdom.
Knowledge gratifies the ego, wisdom happens only when the ego is gone, forgotten. Knowledge can be taught; universities exist to teach you. Wisdom cannot be taught, it is like an infection: you have to be with the wise, you have to move with the wise, and only then will something start moving inside you.
The movement in the disciple is not caused by the master; it is not under the law of cause and effect. It is what Carl Gustav Jung calls synchronicity. The master is so full of silence, so overflowing with innocence, that his presence triggers a process in you, simply triggers a process in you. Nothing is transferred; your inner being starts remembering “I also have the same treasure as my master, I had simply forgotten about it. I had moved into the without, keeping the within at the back. The treasure was not lost but only forgotten; I had fallen asleep.”
And the sleeping person at the most can dream that he is awake. But that too is a dream. That dream is knowledge. The person who is asleep and thinks that he knows…that is knowledge. But the person who really awakens is wisdom. Knowledge is a false, plastic substitute for wisdom.
Wisdom is true knowledge – rather knowing than knowledge, because it has no full stop to it. It goes on growing, it goes on flowing. The man of wisdom goes on learning; there never comes a stop.
Don’t be knowledgeable, be wise.
The innocent person lives from the heart as the heart of knowing is now. Knowledge is always of the past. Knowledge means memory. Knowledge means you have known something, you have experienced something, and you have accumulated your experience. Knowing is of the present. How can you be in the present if you are clinging too much to knowledge? That is impossible. You will have to drop clinging to knowledge. Knowledge is acquired, knowing is your nature. Knowing is always now. The heart of knowing is now, and the heart of now?
The word now is beautiful. The heart of it is the letter O which is also a symbol for zero. The heart of now is zero, nothingness. When the mind is no more, when you are just a nothingness, just a zero – Buddha calls it exactly that: shunya, the zero, then everything that surrounds you, all that is within and without, is known; known, not as knowledge, known in a totally different way. The same way that the flower knows how to open, and the fish knows how to swim, and the child knows in the mother’s womb how to grow, and you know how to breathe – even while asleep, even in a coma, you go on breathing – and the heart knows how to beat. This is a totally different kind of knowing, so intrinsic, so internal. It is not acquired, it is natural.
Knowledge is gained in exchange for knowing, and when you have knowledge, what happens to knowing? You forget knowing. You have knowledge and you have forgotten knowing. And knowing is the door to the divine; knowledge is a barrier to the divine.
Knowledge has utility in the world. Yes, it will make you more efficient, skillful, a good mechanic, this and that. You may be able to earn in a better way. All that is there, I am not denying it. You can use knowledge in this way, but don’t let knowledge become a barrier to the divine. Whenever knowledge is not needed, put it aside and drown yourself in a state of not knowing, which is also a state of knowing, real knowing. Knowledge is gained in exchange for knowing and knowing is forgotten. It has only to be remembered – you have forgotten it.
The function of the master is to help you remember it. The mind has to be re-minded, for knowing is nothing but re-cognition, re-collection, re-membrance. When you come across some truth, when you come across a master and you see the truth of his being, something within you immediately recognizes it. Not even a single moment is lost. You don’t think about it, whether it is true or not; thinking needs time. When you listen to the truth, when you feel the presence of truth, when you come into close communion with truth, something within you immediately recognizes it, with no argumentation. Not that you accept, not that you believe, you recognize. And it could not be recognized if it were not already known somehow, somewhere, deep down within you.
Krishna says when a person becomes innocent out of maturity and understanding are great souls who perpetually worship Me with devotion.
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