Today I was guided to discover the true meaning of knowing as defined by Patanjali, the great sage who compiled the Yoga Sutras and I would like to share it with the world.
This was a discourse by a living incarnation, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) on Yoga Sutras in 2011.
He said that, as an ordinary man, if you look at your body, you remember the human body the way you were taught at a young age by your primary teacher and you associate that name with it. Immediately you feel you know the body. Just by recollecting the name of the body parts and connecting your past memory, don’t think you know the human body. The problem that humanity faces is that they feel they know something just by knowing the name. Unfortunately, our knowledge of knowing is so superficial, the moment we know the names from what we learnt from schools, we think we know.
Another silly mistake we make is using the superficial averages as the basis for decision making. It’s like if you listen to statistics, 20% Indians get heart attack and die, while the remaining 80% recover. Then you can think, I must be in the 80%. You don’t understand that the 20% lost 100% to this disease. Average is not understanding. It can be, at the most, a tool to tell that you need to understand deeper. Average itself can’t be knowledge because with knowing, we should be liberated from diseases itself.
A person who thinks deeper by understanding the organs, different systems and quality of the body, he thinks he knows it. The experts know the quality, chemistry, physiology and all other components responsible for the body’s functioning, reason for its shape, reason for its size etc. We can say a person who knows all this is an expert because they think they know from top to bottom, inside out.
So what is knowing?
Knowing the Source – consciousness is the ultimate knowing. The ultimate knower – an enlightened being, thinks only if he knows the consciousness in which the object happened, he knows it, till then he does not know. The base root when it is realized, only then he thinks he knows. The great news is the tool for knowing is a unique tool that only human beings have, when the pen to write is with you, you can write anything you want, when the eyes to see are there with you, you can see anything, when the ears to hear are there, you can hear anything you want. In Sanskrit, we call it Buddhi – the ability to know, only human beings have Buddhi. But you have to take responsibility to grow your Buddhi, to awaken this ability to download from the Source, then you can have anything.
Going back to the example of knowing the body, experts who think that if they know the why, what, how, when, they think they know the body. Without knowing the source material on which the body is written, they cannot claim that they know the body. Only when you know thoroughly the body and the consciousness on which it is written, then you know the body. Knowing itself needs a clear understanding.
Another important truth is – when we don’t know but we THINK we KNOW, we get into a big mess in life. The moment we are clear on what we don’t know, we don’t get into a mess. Getting into entanglement with the Universe without knowing the source material of the universe is a very dangerous thing. If we can impart this spiritual truth to children, they will not have to suffer from the mess! This clarity really inspired me to discover consciousness so that I can continue to help in awakening the Buddhi in children and adults with this spiritual truth.
In essence, knowing consciousness is the ultimate knowing because consciousness is the source of everything. If you are very clear about what you know and what you don’t know, knowing the things you don’t know is also considered knowledge. All children should only be taught to venture into anything after they know the source material thoroughly. Namaste 😀