What is Knowledge : Ch-5 -4.

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Chapter 5: Maintaining One's Position-4.

If you have already lost yourself, who are you to gain something else?

What sort of 'you' can possess another thing, inasmuch as you have already lost yourself?

The object that you possess will also be a substanceless, balloon-like emptiness, because the possessor thereof himself has become empty due to the loss of personality.

This was a great question which Draupadi posed in the court of the Kauravas: "How can Yudhishthira lose me, inasmuch as he has already lost himself?"

To this question no answer can be given, and nobody gave an answer.

Likewise, how is it possible for anyone to possess anything in the world after having lost oneself totally?

The object that is possessed also will be an ephemeral appearance which has no content or substance.



These ideas will make you cogitate a little bit on the difficulty that you are facing in this great adventure you call "acquiring knowledge".

It is not an easy thing.

You may stand on your head for years, but you will not succeed because there is a basic problem that is ingrained in our own existence.

Existence itself is a kind of evil, in a very highly philosophical sense, and this is perhaps the quintessence of Buddha's message: "Existence itself is an evil. You have to be rid of existence."

In a different way, Schopenhauer said the same thing: "Existence is evil. Be rid of it."


Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  .....



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