Let Us Be Gods-Part V

Continued From The First Page

You will be astonished to learn that even many philosophers have taken the view that this wrong perception is true knowledge. And then they try, on the basis of accepting this as true, to somehow teach us about that other knowledge by which God becomes known. Of course, when that kind of fantastic thing is sought to be accomplished, it goes without saying, that they have to speculate wildly, and have to propose many kinds of odd things to arrive at a final conclusion.

Even some Vedantins have done that. I have been speaking from the standpoint of Advaita Vedanta, monistic Vedanta. But even the great philosopher, Ramanuja, who represents another school of Vedanta called qualified monism, Visistadvaita, starts with this idea: the world is real; we are real; the body is real; and our present knowledge is all right. Of course, you have to make a little correction here and there, and on that basis, he had to prove that there is such a thing as Brahman, and Brahman can be known, and so on. I won't go into the details of those things at this time.

But if things were all right, as these philosophers say, how is it that we have been finding ourselves so ignorant? And how is it that all the time we have to seek for knowledge and more knowledge and more knowledge? If you don't go to school and college, you are a dunce. Everybody will say, 'Here is a fool! Doesn't know anything!' And going to school, what a horrible thing that is. It's a terrible ordeal. Unless students are chastised, they don't want to learn anything. Very few want to learn any new things. And here is a word to parents: If children are still young, force them to gain knowledge. Just forget all these newfangled ideas, just force them to gain knowledge. If you say: 'Well, that will warp the nature of the child'–– it won't.

Knowledge itself is its own corrective. Knowledge itself. Suppose a child is sick and the doctor comes to give an injection. The child doesn't want to have the injection and you have to hold the child steady by force. Then the doctor puts the needle in. Would not this medicine do good to the child? So, put knowledge into everyone. Force knowledge into everyone, but be sure that it is true knowledge. Don't put in knowledge that is warped and crooked, that is to say, fanatical, dogmatic knowledge—if knowledge can be called dogmatic, or dogmatism could be called knowledge. You have to be very sure that it is unadulterated knowledge, not contaminated by dogma and theology, and things like that. That's where the harm comes, you see.

Tell the truth about everything to everyone. And even if you have to force it down their throats, you will find it will do them good. Because of our prevalent ignorance, we are unwilling to learn new things or corrective things. And that resistance has to be overcome. If you leave it to a person to overcome, he won't.