Awareness is inner flowering

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 Knowledge and Awareness

Awareness the
Inner Flowering!

“Only one question I have to ask you.

Have you learned that by learning which
there no need to learn anything anymore
arises? Have you known that by knowing
which all suffering ceases? Have you
been taught that which cannot be
taught?”

This is awareness not

knowledge that fulfills life and
takes you to the dimensionless
dimension.

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 Knowledge and Awareness

Knowledge and Awareness

Knowledge is arrogance awareness is

humility.

nowledge comes through the gate of the mind.

It brings with it the seeds of arrogance and
ego. Because your mind is a human creation, if
you live with human beings the mind is continuously
fed. They say something, you say something – the
mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.

Our present day education system is mind and

knowledge based. The system makes you capable to
live into the world. However it does not make you a
human being.

Awareness comes through the door of the heart.

Awareness brings with it seeds of bliss and humility.
Awareness belongs to the fourth dimension or the
dimension beyond the known. Therefore meditation
is the way to bring a greater degree of awareness in
an individual.

I have taken this opportunity to look into the present

system of our education system as well. As a student

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or an educationist, you either spend or help someone

go through nearly one third precious years of life in
acquiring all that is deemed necessary to plunder into
the outer world of competition, conflict, and duality,
where everything is measured in terms of money,
efficiency, and speed. After spending nearly 20-25-27
years of your youthful life of vigor you are decorated
with degrees, credits, honors of various kinds and
colors. It is said, ironically, you are now ready to the
world that lies ahead of you.

Have you wondered that after spending nearly

one third of your life’s precious years when you
leave the universities to enter the outside world
are you a balanced human being. Are you capable
to deal with the unique questions the life poses to
you? Are you blissful deep within? Are fully ready to
enter the mysterious world, with unique ways and
means that is inviting you in all its glamour and
glitter?

“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you

learned that by learning which there no need to
learn anything anymore arises? Have you known
that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have
you been taught that which cannot be taught?”

I can answer on your behalf. But I leave this for you to

introspect deep within the silence of your being. If the
answer is a capital NO then we need to revisit our

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systems of education at schools colleges and

universities.

Certainly, something is grossly missing in your

education system. And that which is missing is Fourth
Dimension or Dimension of the Being. It is
Meditation. Meditation is the missing dimension in
education.

When we look at ancient systems of education in the

east the universities at Nalanda, Takshila and the
system of teaching we find something unique. In such
companies, the students were prepared inwardly to
venture into the life ahead of us.

Let not any hasty conclude that I want the entire

education system into older one. Remember life does
not move backward. Life always moves forward. Wise
never lament for that which is not. But certainly learn
from the wisdom of the past and translate or present
the old into new jargons. Each master does this. He is
the link between the past and the present. Like a
bridge under which life energy flows, he connects the
two shores.

My purpose of such talks is to bring a new awareness

and deep down a realization that indeed ‘Meditation
is the missing dimension in our education
system’. This realization is the first step for journey
forward into a new horizon.

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Meditation is that link or bridge or the master

within that connects the two shores – the inner
and the outer and in the process prepares you to
face the intricate situations that life presents as
you interact in the outer world of objects and
beings.

Meditation transforms knowledge into

awareness. In fact meditation bridges knowledge
and awareness. And without the bridge your life
will remain simply barren.

I take lore from the Upanishads to explain this

further. This is the story of Svetketu.

SVETKETU
In Upanishadic days there was a sage Uddalak who
had a son named Svetketu. Svetketu was sent by his
father to a gurukul - a family of an enlightened
master, to learn. He learned everything that could
possibly be learned.

He memorized all the Vedas and all the science

available in those days. He became so proficient in
them that he came to be recognized as a great
scholar. His fame started spreading all over the
country. Then there was nothing else to be taught, so
the master said, ‘You have known all that can be
taught. Now you can go back.’

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Thinking that everything had happened and there

was nothing else remaining. Whatsoever the master
knew, he also knew, and the master had taught him
everything. Svetketu returned home. With great
pride and ego, he came back to his father. When he
was entering the village his father, Uddalak, looked
out of the window at his son coming back from the
master’s place or university. He saw Svetketu walking
very proudly, holding his head in a very egoistic way,
and he was looking all around very self-conscious of
the fact that he knew.

The father became sad and depressed. He knew this

is not the way of one who really knows, this is not the
way of one who has come to know the supreme
knowledge. The son entered the house. He was
thinking that his father would be very happy – he had
become one of the supreme most scholars of the
country. He was well known and respected
everywhere – but he saw that the father was sad, so
he asked, “Why are you sad - Father?”

The father enquired:

“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you

learned that by learning which there no need to
learn anything anymore arises? Have you known
that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have
you been taught that which cannot be taught?”

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The boy also became sad. He said, ‘No. Whatsoever I

know has been taught to me, and I can teach it to
anybody who is ready to learn.”

The father said,

“Then you go back and ask your master that you

be taught that which cannot be taught.”

The boy said, “But that is absurd. If it cannot be

taught, how can the master teach me?”

The father said, “That is the art of the master: he can

teach you that which cannot be taught. You go back.”

He went back. Bowing down to his master’s feet, he

said, “My father has sent me for an absolutely absurd
thing. Now I don’t know where I am and what I am
asking you. My father has told me to come back and
return only when I have learned that which cannot be
learned, when I have been taught that which cannot
be taught. What is it? What is this? You never told me
about it.”

The master said, “Unless one inquires, it cannot be

told; you never inquired about it. But now you are
starting a totally different journey. And remember, it
cannot be taught, so it is very delicate. Only indirectly
will I help you.

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 Knowledge and Awareness

Do one thing: take all the animals of my gurukul –

there were at least four hundred cows, bulls and
other animals – and go to the deepest forest possible
where nobody ever comes and moves. Live with these
animals in silence. Do not talk, because these animals
cannot understand any language. So remain silent,
and when just by reproduction these four hundred
animals have become one thousand, then come back.”

It was going to be a long time – until four hundred

animals had become one thousand. And he was to go
without saying anything, without arguing, without
asking, “What are you telling me to do? Where will it
lead?”

He was to just live with animals and trees and rocks;

not talking, and forgetting the human world
completely. Because your mind is a human creation, if
you live with human beings the mind is continuously
fed. They say something, you say something – the
mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.

“So go,” the master said, “to the hills, and to the forest.
Live alone. Do not talk. And there is no use in
thinking, because these animals won’t understand
even your thinking. Drop all your scholarship here.”

Svetketu followed. He went to the forest and lived

with the animals for many years. For a few days
thoughts remained there in the mind – the same

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thoughts repeating themselves again and again. Then

it became boring.

If new thoughts are not felt, then you will become

aware that the mind is just repetitive, just a
mechanical repetition; it goes on in a rut. And there
was no way to get new knowledge. With new
knowledge the mind is always happy, because there
is something again to grind, something again to work
out; the mechanism goes on moving.

Svetketu became aware. There were four hundred

animals, birds, other wild animals, trees, rocks, rivers
and streams, but no man and no possibility of any
human communication. There was no use in being
very egoistic, because these animals did not know
what type of great scholar this Svetketu was.

They did not consider him at all. They did not look at
him with respect, so by and by the pride disappeared,
because it was futile and it even looked foolish to
walk in a prideful way with the animals.

Even Svetketu started feeling, “If I remain egoistic

these animals will laugh at me – so what am I doing?”
Sitting under the trees, sleeping near the streams, by
and by his mind became silent.

The story is beautiful. The years passed and his mind

became so silent that Svetketu completely forgot
when he had to return.

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He became so silent that even this idea was not there.

The past dropped completely, and with the dropping
of the past the future drops, because the future is
nothing but a projection of the past – just the past
reaching into the future.

So he forgot what the master had said, he forgot

when he had to return. There was no when and
where, he was just here and now. He lived in the
moment just like the animals, he became a cow. The
story says that when the animals became one
thousand, they started feeling uncomfortable. They
were waiting for Svetketu to take them back to the
ashram and he had forgotten, so one day the cows
decided to speak to Svetketu and they said:

“Now it is time enough, and we remember that the

master had said that you must come back when the
animals became one thousand, and you have
completely forgotten. Now is the time and we must go
back. We have become one thousand.”

So Svetketu went back with the animals. The master

looked from the door of his hut at Svetketu coming
with one thousand animals, and he said to his other
disciples, “Look, one thousand and one animals are
coming.”

Svetketu had become such a silent being – no ego, no

self-consciousness, just moving with the animals as
one of them.

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The master came to receive him; the master was

dancing, ecstatic. He embraced Svetketu and he said,
“Now there is nothing to say to you – you have
already known. Why have you come? There is no
need to come now there is nothing to be taught. You
have already known.”

Svetketu said, “Just to pay my respects, just to

touch your feet, just to be grateful. It has
happened, and you have taught me that which
cannot be taught.”

This is what a master is to do: create a situation in

which the thing happens. Therefore only indirect
effort can be made, indirect help, indirect guidance.

And wherever direct guidance is given, wherever

your mind is taught, it is not religion. It may be
theology but not religion; it may be philosophy but
not religion.

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