Knowledge Is Burden

YOU READ ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCIPLESHIP ON THE PATH OF YOGA, BUT HOW CAN AN ATHEIST BE A DISCIPLE?

Neither theist nor an atheist, they cannot be disciples. They have already taken the attitude, they have already decided, so what is the point of being a disciple? If you already know, how can you be a disciple? Discipleship means the realization that, “I don’t know.” Atheists, theists – no, they cannot be disciples.

And if you believe in something you will miss the beauty of discipleship. If you know something already, that knowing will give you ego. It will not make you humble. That’s why pundits and scholars miss. Sometimes sinners have reached, but scholars never. They know too much; they are so clever. Their cleverness is their disease; that becomes the suicide. They will not listen because they will not be ready to learn.

Discipleship simply means an attitude to learn – moment to moment remaining aware that “I don’t know.” This knowing that “I don’t know,” this awareness that “I am ignorant,” gives you an opening; then you are not closed. The moment you say, “I know,” you are a closed circle; the door is no more open. But when you say, “I don’t know,” it means you are ready to learn. It means the door is open.

If you have already reached, concluded, you cannot be a disciple. One has to be in a receptive mood. One has to be continuously aware that the real is unknown and “Whatsoever I know is trivial, is just rubbish.” What do you know? You may have gathered much information, but that is not knowledge. You may have accumulated much dust through universities; that is not knowledge. You may know about Buddha, you may know about Jesus, but that is not knowledge. Unless you become a Buddha, there is no knowledge. Unless you are the Jesus, there is no knowledge

Knowledge comes through being, not through memory. You can have a trained memory; memory is just a mechanism. It will not give you a richer being. It may give you nightmarish dreams, but it will not give you a richer being. You will remain the same covered with much dust. Knowledge, and particularly the ego that comes through knowledge – the feeling that “I know” closes you. Now you cannot be a disciple. And if you cannot be a disciple, you cannot enter the discipline of yoga. So come to the door of yoga ignorant – alert of your ignorance, alert that you don’t know. This is the only knowledge which will help, the knowledge that “I don’t know.”

This will make you humble. A subtle humility will Come to you. The ego, by and by, will subside. Knowing that you don’t know, how can you be egoistic? Knowledge is the most subtle food for ego: you feel you are something. You know; you become somebody.

When you feel you are nobody, when you feel you are nothing, suddenly you are available to many mysteries to happen to you. Your doors are open. The sun can rise; the sunrays can penetrate you. Your gloom, your darkness, will disappear. But you are closed. The sun may be knocking on the door, but there is no opening; not even a window is open.

Atheists or theists, Hindus or Mohammedans, Christians or Buddhists, they cannot enter on the path. They believe. They have already reached without reaching anywhere. They have concluded without any realization. They have words in the minds – concepts, theories, scriptures. And the more the burden, the more they are dead.

Knowledge Is Burden:

Knowledge is destructive of something immensely valuable in you: it destroys your wonder. And it is through wonder that one becomes aware of godliness, not through knowledge. You need to feel awe at sunrise, the sky full of stars, the roaring ocean. If you cannot feel awe, you cannot feel godliness, because godliness is a mystery and it is available only to those who are capable of feeling awe, who are capable of being mystified.

No more surprises

Knowledge destroys wonder, destroys the capacity to feel awe. It makes you capable of explaining away everything. It takes away all poetry from life. It takes away all meaning from life. The knowledgeable person is never surprised by anything because he can explain everything. But no explanation is true for they don’t explain anything at all. The mystery remains. The mystery is infinite.

The knowledgeable person becomes so burdened by his knowledge that he loses the mirror-like quality of reflecting the beauty, the benediction, the dance, the ecstasy of existence.

Hence instead of knowledge seek knowing. Knowing is a totally different phenomenon. Knowing means innocence; knowledgeable means cleverness, knowledge is cunning. Knowing is simply a heart phenomenon, knowledge is a head thing. Knowledge means you have a lot of information – you have gathered much information in your memory; your memory has become a bank; it’s a biocomputer. It does not make you wise; you can repeat only that which has been put into your memory in the first place. Memory can never give you original experience or insight. It takes away many things and gives you nothing – except that you feel more egoistic because you think you know….

Put knowledge aside

Knowledge hinders your wisdom into intelligence. Unless you put knowledge aside, your nature cannot explode into intelligence. Put the knowledge aside and you will be in for a great surprise: that you start behaving in a spontaneous way.

Knowledge is readymade; it keeps you tethered to the past. Hence all your responses are out of date, are never to the point, are always falling short, are never adequate, can never be adequate. Life goes on changing – every moment, it is always new. And your response is not a response, it is a reaction; it comes from the past. You have not even looked at the situation and you have repeated the ready-made answer like a gramophone record.

Hence you lag behind life. And if you lag behind life, you can’t have blissfulness in your being. You will always feel you are missing, you will always feel something is missing. And what is that something? You are not in step with life. You will always dream that you are rushing and running toward a station; by the time you reach it, the train is moving away from the platform. That dream is symbolic: that simply shows that you are never alive to the moment, you are always late. It is because of your past, because you think you already know the answers. Hence you never listen to the questions; you never listen to the situation that is confronting you.

Knowledge is not going to help as far as life is concerned. The knowledgeable person is almost a dead person; he lives in his grave.

Live spontaneously

Come out of your graves. Live more spontaneously, more responsibly. Respond to the moment. Then your act will be total because it will arise out of the present; it will reflect the actual situation. It will be really meaningful, significant, satisfying, fulfilling. And you will find that you are no longer missing. You are in step with life.

Innocence is always in harmony with life. And to be harmonious is to be enlightened. It is the only way to know the ultimate truth.