self Knowing
“So, we have to consider what is self-Knowing, and then we also have to consider side by side. what is not self-Knowing. Of course, we have been inspired by the World Teacher, Sri.J. Krishnamurti. And it is amazing that the American theoretical physicist, Professor Richard Feynman – he has given a sutra on self-Knowing, which is very akin to all of the World Teacher’s work on self-Knowing. And so, Feynman said. “The most important thing for you is, that you should not deceive yourself”. And he added a clause. He said, “you are the easiest person to be deceived.” So, consider this very carefully.
“And I found out an astrological reason, why Richard Feynman is on the dot, where. self-Knowing is concerned. He’s of course, not talking about self-Knowing per se, but is talking about self-deception which is in place, when self-Knowing is absent. Hmm. Please consider carefully what I’m saying. Self-deception will come into existence whenever self-Knowing is not in place. And Richard Feynman has a Sun which is exalted, and he is born on the same day as the World Teacher, J Krishnamurti (May 12th). So, the positions of the Sun in the zodiac is the same. And for both people, the Sun is the Atmakaraka., which means significator of the Soul. So, that is why they are speaking the same truth. The World Teacher is speaking about self-Knowing and Richard Feynman is giving an equally precious sutra on self-deception. Hmm.
“So, that’s all in an aside, but the important thing is, we are living in a society where because of our religious conditioning, we have all become very habituated to moving in the direction of ideals and ideals which do not represent reality in our life, but ideals which most often are exactly the opposite of what our personal reality is.
“For example, let us say that I’m a very jealous person and I go to my parents, or I go to my Guru, and I go to a Church Father, a counselor, and I ask them, that I have this problem of burning jealousy, which is there all the time. And what am I to do with it? I find that I’m haunted by this jealousy and even though I want to be free of it, it’s possessing me continuously. And I don’t get my freedom from this jealousy. So what am I to do?
“Then the religious authorities and your elders and everybody else in mainstream society, they’re going to tell you that you should not be jealous! So, they posit the exact opposite of the real circumstance in life, the what is, as Krishnamurti would say, the what is, is jealousy. That is what really exists in consciousness, it is jealousy.
“But our teachers and our elders, they are telling us that in order to be free of jealousy, we should practice non jealousy. And we should not be jealous! I don’t know how you’re going to solve this problem, which is inherently a paradox, and which is very complicated because it flies in the face of your soul, or intrinsic nature. The intrinsic nature, or Divine architecture in you has got one part which is called the Divine conspiracy and the Divine conspiracy is, that jealousy is part of your Divine architecture. And so now comes the World Teacher. Now, he says, don’t deal with the ideal, because that’s an unreal thing that’s not true to you. Then what do you do? He’s saying come to grips with the reality of jealousy. Embrace the jealousy. Don’t criticize that jealousy. Don’t condemn the jealousy. Be like a mother who’s very compassionate to her mischievous infant in the same way. Be very compassionate to the jealousy and watch the movement of your jealous thoughts. And in that watching if there is compassion, and if there is the absence of judgment and criticism and condemnation and when there is no desire even to change it, then what will happen is, that jealousy will reveal itself in its origins. And then there is a possibility of surpassing that jealousy and probably going into another realm altogether. And so that is self-Knowing.
“So self-Knowing, what is this self-Knowing, the self-Knowing is seeing yourself exactly as you are, and not superimposing an ideal, which is not who you are. But you superimpose that ideal on that real essence of who you are and try to run behind that ideal, try to achieve that ideal. But that’s not going to happen and therefore self-Knowing is seeing yourself as who you actually are.
“And that requires great honesty and that requires great humility and that requires a faith in the words of whoever he is, who is giving you this extraordinary message, this new approach to reality and inner cleansing. So you’ve got to have faith. You’ve got to be vulnerable to his words. And then possibly you will enter into the boat of self-Knowing. Mm-Hmm.
“And everything which glosses over that self-Knowing, which negates who you are, and which takes you by the hand and drags you in the opposite direction. That is self-deception. That is not self-Knowing. So like that, we can give you numerous examples to show you, to convince you, that more often than not, we are not actually self-Knowing, but we are trying to achieve something by running behind an ideal which is not true to us. And one has to begin by becoming aware that we are fleeing from reality, why, because reality is painful and nobody gave us 10 lessons how to deal with reality. That’s it”.
– Sankara Bhagavadpada