Thinking that you know the world is the biggest problem

Thinking that you know the world is the biggest problem
Published: Tuesday, Jun 28, 2011, 8:00 IST
By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

There are two kinds of minds- an open mind and a closed mind. A closed mind is that which says, “This is how it is, I know it, that is it.” An open mind says, “Oh may be! Perhaps! I do not know!” Limited knowledge, and conformity about it, makes a mind very hard. Whenever you seem to understand a situation and label it,

“This is how it is’, that is the beginning of your problem. And all problems arise from “knowing”, not from “not knowing”. Whenever you think that injustice has been done to you; this falls in the category of - I know it, this is how things are. Suffering is a product of limited knowledge.

Whenever we attach a label ‘not good’, it comes from limited knowledge. But when there is amazement, patience, joy, then you are in a state of ‘ I don’t know, may be, something, Oh, what is it.” The whole life is a shift from the limited ‘I know’ to all possibilities’.

You think you know the world and that is the biggest problem. When an event occurs, there could be many possibilities for that event to be that way.

There is a proverb that says,’ You fell into the pit in the daytime, which you could see in the night’. You saw the pit at night and you were careful, but in the daytime you fell into the same pit. This means that your eyes are not open; you are not sensitive enough to see and recognise what is going on. And as we attach the events and emotions to individuals, this cycle continues. You will never be free from that. So first detach an event and emotion from that person and from space and time. It is like Astrology, which is the knowledge of oneness of the universe. If a pin is pricked into your hand, your whole body feels it. So every cell is connected with the whole of you.

In the same way everybody is connected to all creation. For a wise person, all individual existence ceases. One should not see intentions behind other’s mistakes or attribute mistakes to somebody and bear grudges, because one knows and understands that it is nobody’s mistake. Then mind drops cravings and aversions and becomes free.

The world is of change, the self is of non-change. You have to rely on the non-change and accept the change. Often people think that certainty is freedom. If you feel that freedom when you are not certain then that is ‘real’ freedom