INSIDE

April 19 2017

INSIDE 

Book knowledge is a burdensome knowledge where the reader, who, having absorbed the teachings, philosophies, doctrines and techniques of others goes into a dilemma many a times. The burden of accepting or rejecting the texts becomes paramount for the thinker; yet, he is only at the text level. A deep analysis would have to be the basis of ones acceptance or rejection in the belief of the teaching, philosophy, doctrine or technique of the Teacher, Philosopher, Sage or Seer. A Belief is so called because it makes you accept what someone else is telling you to be true. It’s like a birth-blind being told of the wonders and beauty of this world, he has no choice but to believe what is told to him, for he has not seen it himself. A blind man will have to believe if you tell him that it’s light when the night falls or that flowers are ugly things and that the sky is green and the grass is blue. A sighted man will nevertheless use his own vision to discern the true from the untrue. Ironically, most people are blind. The learned and highly intellectual man, more often than not becomes conceited and vain that he knows it all. He is very learned and intellectual; does it mean that he is intelligent too? An intellectual man believes that he is knowledge itself whereas an intelligent man believes only that which he experiences. It is the knowing and not the believing that makes all the difference. One believes something that one does not know but when one knows, there is no question of believing. One doesn’t have to believe what one knows, one simply knows it to be true and that’s enough.

There is a very famous quote:

“A man who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, ignore him.

A man who knows not and knows that he knows not, is a student, teach him.

A man who knows but knows not that he knows, is asleep, awaken him.

A man who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man, follow him!”

The Buddha is said to be the ultimate manifestation of enlightenment; is it possible to read about the enlightenment of the Buddha and become enlightened? One can become a Buddhist by faith and believe in the teachings, the doctrines and the techniques taught by the Buddha, but one cannot become enlightened. The Buddha is any enlightened soul who has experienced the truth on and, via the journey’ Within’. Buddha is the equivalent word for ‘Enlightenment’. Buddha was enlightened, we believe that but can only know enlightenment by the practice of his technique, the same technique he discovered and practiced to attain enlightenment. If one were to practice what Buddha has preached over two thousand and five hundred years ago, one would experience at the deepest and innermost levels what the Buddha experienced and so got enlightened. Anyone can be a Buddha, for Buddha means ‘The Enlightened One’

Gittanjali Elizabeth Mordecai

(Gittanjali Singh)