Words From The Master - 17 April 2008

Path to stillness

Whoever comes to a teacher, whether he is a spiritual teacher, scientific teacher or otherwise comes to acquire knowledge. There is a transmission process. For this wisdom transfer to take place effectively and effortlessly, one’s mind has to be empty and still. Only then the teaching, learning and above all, the transmission can happen.

Knowledge is packaged in three ways. Basic knowledge that we all learn from childhood, the knowledge we learn our three ‘r’s with, is intellectual knowledge. To read, write, and calculate we use our head, our mind, to acquire the knowledge needed. At this level of knowledge transfer communication happens. Another type of knowledge requires the involvement of the heart; one’s head is no use here. Can you become a poet using your head; can you become a singer or a painter using your head? You need passion to be a master.

The son of a potter watched his father and picked up the art. He became famous as a master craftsman. People came to him and asked to be taught the way he learnt it. He said, “I don’t know how to teach you. If you like just watch me and do the same.”

Music was learnt this way in India under a gurukul system for centuries; from master to disciple by hearing and singing, never a note written down. So were the scriptures taught. No art can truly be taught, they must be learnt. They must be absorbed, like a sponge soaks up water. What was merely an intellectual communication becomes collaboration between master and the taught.

Spiritual knowledge is knowledge of the highest kind; it is not knowledge really but wisdom. This knowledge can neither be taught nor learnt. Spiritual wisdom, the Truth of the Universe, has to be experienced, by transmission from an enlightened master who is willing to transmit it from his Being to your Being. At this level, it is a communion of beings, far beyond collaboration and communication.

Communication is verbal and intellectual; collaboration is emotional involvement; in communion all that you need is silence. When words turn into silence the transfer of wisdom is 100 per cent.

When you decide to embark upon a path of spiritual enquiry, drop all your old knowledge and empty your mind. Go humbly to the master and in silence you will learn. Spiritual wisdom happens; it’s not taught or learnt. It happens in the silencing of your mind. It happens when your chatter, both inner and outer, are stopped.

Meditation is the key to silencing the mind. No spiritual knowledge is possible without the aid of meditation. Ego fills the mind otherwise.

To go beyond ego, to go beyond mind, to go beyond chatter, meditation is the answer.