by Viswanathan Subramanian
[box]The understanding of the “outer” should start from the “inner”. Shall we call this “self-knowledge”? Viswanathan Subramanian explores in a multi-part series.[/box]Right from the moment children are born, there is this natural tendency of drilling knowledge into their brains! How many of us have not been through those all-round initiatives to make us know by signs, later by language and sooner by writing?
The predominance of knowledge is so overwhelming. Thanks to these practices, the child in you and me has got drowned into the so-called knowledge imperative.
When a child is born, ego or the sense of “I” is absent. The ego process begins the moment a child is given a name. Name imparts a so-called identity to the child and this initiates the thinking process. Once that begins, thoughts accumulate as memory, making thinking machineries out of human beings. As the child continues to accumulate more and more knowledge the ego that is already in place gets strengthened and in due course, becomes so called powerful!
In no time, concepts become life and conflicts become the undercurrent of all our actions. Formula dictates how “I” should conduct myself.
It is against this background that lofty religious scriptures get understood; not in their real perspective, but only as concepts. In truth, Hindu religious scriptures look out of the box – they talk about “Brahman”, the transcendental reality underlying the phenomenal world we experience all around. You would possibly visualize “Brahman” like this: A cinema screen on which pictures of fire, water run. The screen is the background but it remains intact. The fire doesn’t burn it nor does the water wet the screen! We are that wholesome reality in which the entire cosmos is perceived! The mind perceiving the cosmos is also part of that cosmos. However, in the process of understanding scriptures, we actually begin intellectualizing instantaneously. The consequence – “Brahman” is not experienced but is thought about. The Absolute Truth then, at best, becomes a concept of the thinking mind, unless we delve deep into the experiential reality.
Does this surprise you ? Without knowledge and concepts built about them, how can we imagine our present status? After all, thinking over centuries, has brought us where we are today. Isn’t that what we have learnt to believe? Thought and hence technology has brought in the immensity of life as we have today – material advancements, whatsoever, the Internet, Cell Phone, or iPod, just to name a few. But, this sort of evolution over the years – is this right? Do we really live life in full, without any conflict? Do we act right? All this introspection – does it disturb you?
Gear up then! We will open the Pandora’s Box as we begin the quest for ‘self-knowledge’! We will meet again!
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