Own Understanding – In Gita Verse 11.15 Arjuna said: My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, I see assembled in Your body all the demigods and various other living entities. I see Brahmā sitting on the lotus flower, as well as Lord Śiva and all the sages and divine serpents.
Now what Krishna has told Arjuna, it has become his knowing, understanding. Till now it was all words. But now after seeing it, it has become his own understanding.
Knowledge is borrowed. Others know it; you believe they must be true. Wisdom comes through your own experience. Knowledge is an accumulation, wisdom is also an accumulation. But knowledge is an accumulation of others’ experiences; wisdom is an accumulation of your own experience. A young man can never be wise; he can be knowledgeable – because for wisdom, time is needed. Old people are wise because you have to pass through experiences.
You can read many books on love and you can know much about love, what others have said about it, but to know love itself you will have to pass through experience – which is time-absorbing. By the time you know something about love, the youth, your young age, will have gone. You will be old, but wise.
Old age is wise, youth can be knowledgeable. Wisdom is one’s own experience accumulated; knowledge is others’ experience accumulated by you.
Then what is understanding? Understanding is non-accumulative. What difference does it make whether somebody else experienced and you believed, or you experienced and then you believed? That experience is from the past. It is no longer there, and you have changed so much – and everybody is changing every moment – that an old man who says, “In my youth I experienced this,” is talking about somebody else because he is no longer the same.
Wisdom is a little closer than knowledge, but not very close. Understanding is non-accumulative; you don’t accumulate either others’ experiences or your own. You need not accumulate, you grow. Understanding is always fresh; wisdom is a little dusty and old, wisdom is always of the past, your own past. Knowledge is also of the past – of others’ pasts. But what difference does it make finally? Because your own past is as far away from you as others’ pasts; you are no longer the same. Every moment the river is flowing: says old Heraclitus, you cannot step in the same river twice.
Your own youth – you cannot step in it twice. You have learned something from your experience, you carry it. Knowledge can be washed away, wisdom also. They can be brainwashed, completely wiped from your mind. Understanding can never be brainwashed, it is not part of the brain, it is non-accumulative. All that is accumulative is accumulated in the brain.
Understanding is of your being, it cannot be washed away – you cannot brainwash a buddha. In fact he has brainwashed himself completely, he has cleaned his slate himself, how can you clean him? He is non-accumulative, he lives moment to moment. Through living his being grows. If through living your knowledge grows, it is wisdom; if through living your being grows, it is understanding – and if without living your accumulation grows, it is knowledge.
Understanding is the real flowering of being. A man of understanding is mirror-like. A mirror carries nothing. A mirror always lives in the immediate present: whoever comes before it, it reflects.
You ask me a question. The question can be answered through knowledge, that is, the experience of others. The question can be answered through wisdom, experience of my own. The question can be answered through understanding – then I am just a mirror, I simply respond.
You ask, you come before my mirror, I simply respond. That’s why a man of understanding will always; be felt contradictory, inconsistent, because what can he do? He does not carry the past, his answers are not coming from the past; his answers are coming right now this very moment from his being. And every moment the world is changing, it is a flux, so how can an old answer be given again? Even if the words appear to be old the answer cannot be old.
Understanding is non-repetitive and non-accumulative. Wisdom is accumulative, repetitive; knowledge is accumulative, repetitive. Knowledge is sheer belief, wisdom has a little experience in it, understanding is totally different. It is your presence, your mirrorlike presence. It is a response.
Old people can be wise, young people can be knowledgeable, only children can be understanding. That is the meaning when Jesus says, “Only those who are like children will be able to enter my Kingdom of God.”
When you again become childlike, fresh, carrying no past, carrying no ready-made answers within you – carrying no answers, just a deep emptiness – then something echoes in you. Somebody asks a question… No answer comes from memory, no answer comes from experience, but the answer is a response, this very moment.
Understanding is always of the now and here. Understanding is the most beautiful thing that can happen to a person. Drop knowledge, and then drop wisdom also. Don’t believe in others’ experiences and don’t believe in your own experiences either, because they are of the past. You have passed from there, they are no longer a part of existence – things have flowed on. The river has passed under a thousand and one bridges, and it is not the same river even if you see it flowing. It is not the same river, it is constantly changing.
Except for change, everything is changing. Change is the only permanent factor in existence – so how can you rely on the past? If you rely, you will always miss the present.
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