Knowledge is Existence
A stone exists, a plant or a
tree exists, an animal or a creature exists, and a human being also exists.
Would you like to exist like a stone? Perhaps stones exist for a longer period
than human beings. A human being cannot live as long as a rock, for instance.
But would you like to be a rock because it would enable you to exist for longer
than as a man or a woman? Would you like to be a crawling creature, an
elephant, a plant or a tree? Even trees are capable of surviving for hundreds
of years. Do you like to consider a tree as superior to man because of the
longer life that it enjoys? No, you consider man as superior to a tree or to a
beast of the jungle, or to a stone. The reason is the transparency of
consciousness in the human personality, the widened vision which a person, as a
human being, is capable of. Man is more powerful than even an elephant; you
know it very well. Man can control even an elephant, a tiger or a lion, though
from the point of view of physical survival and physical strength, man is
inferior to an elephant or a lion. It is said that knowledge is power, and here
is an illustration of the way in which man considers himself to be more secure
than the other species in creation. Animals are not as secure as human beings.
Man guards himself in many ways; animals cannot do that. All this is to
illustrate the fact that knowledge is security, power, satisfaction and true
existence.
How will you blend knowledge
with your existence? Every day you pass through the hours of the day and night;
you have got the routine of your work. How does this knowledge benefit you in
any way whatsoever? Are you in any way better, qualitatively, in your existence
than you were yesterday – or are you only a quantity and there is no quality?
The advantage of education is that every day you feel a greater clarity of your
thoughts and a broadened form of your vision of life, a greater satisfaction
within your own self, a lesser need for contact with things and persons, and a
conviction within that you are approximating to the reality of life in a
greater measure than you could have done some years earlier.
Education is, actually, a
gaining of insight into the nature of the truths of existence, the realities of
life. If the realities of life stare at you even after you are educated, and
you are not acquainted with the art of living in this world – you find yourself
a stranger in this wide world of nature and society even after you are a
degree-holder or a learned person in some way – that education cannot be
regarded as real education, because it has not entered into your blood. It is
not part of your personality. It is not you; it is a commodity that you are
carrying, like luggage on the head. It is a property, and a property is not
identical with the owner of the property. The property can leave you any day
because it is something owned as an external item, not actually being a part of
your own existence. If the knowledge that you have gained is only luggage that
you are carrying, like bedding, and you can throw it away at any time you like
– it is not you, but it is yours – then consciousness is not
existence in this case. Existence does not possess consciousness. Consciousness
is not a quality of existence; it is not a property. And, also, existence does
not own consciousness as an external appendage. Existence is
consciousness. Sat is chit. Satyamjnanam-anantam brahma
(Tait. 2.1.1), the Taittiriya Upanishad has told us: "Truth – Knowledge –
Infinity is Brahman, the Absolute." That is to say, Reality, Existence,
Consciousness, Infinity mean one and the same thing.
Excerpts from:
Knowledge is Existence - Lesson 13 Lessons on
the Upanishads by Swami Krishnananda
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