What is Knowledge : Ch-5 -3.

Chapter 5: Maintaining One's Position-3.

What are you going to understand when you are trying to understand yourself?

Where is the object?

And which is the subject there?

When I see an object, I say, "I see this. I know this table, this desk, this person, this something that is in front of me"; but I am not in front of me, so I cannot make such statements in regard to my own self. I cannot say, "I am seeing myself"; nor can I say, "I am touching myself".

These statements, which usually apply to persons and things outside, do not apply to our own self.



Hence, this understanding may not be adequate for the purpose of understanding your own self.

All knowledge fails when it becomes a means to the knowledge of one's own self, though it becomes a great success when it is a weapon to know what is not itself.

There is this peculiar difficulty which is easy to miss, because of the fact that the only thing that we miss in our daily occupations is our own self.

We have everything in the world except ourselves.

We lose ourselves first in order that we may gain others.

The gaining of another is not possible unless you lose yourself first, and it is up to you to know whether it is worthwhile to lose your own self in order that you may gain something.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  .....