Now one may ask, "What is that knowledge? How can one attain to it?" The first condition is to separate this outer knowledge from the inner knowing. False and true, the two things cannot go together. It is in separating the real from the unreal.
The knowledge gained from the outer world is the knowledge of the cover of all things, not of the spirit of all things. Therefore that knowledge cannot be essential knowledge. It is not the knowledge of the spirit of all things; it is the knowledge of the cover of all things which we study and call learning, and to it we give the greatest importance. One may say, "What is one to do when the call of the intellectual reason for knowledge and learning is such that it threatens one's faith in the possibility of knowledge by the self?" The answer is to go on, in that case, with the intellectual knowledge till one feels satisfied with it or tired of it. For one must not seek after food if one is not hungry. The food which is sought in absence of hunger will prove to be a poison. Great as it is, the knowledge of self, if there is not that natural desire raging like fire, does not manifest.
One might ask, "Then why should we not try to get to the bottom of all outside things; shall we not by this way reach the same know]edge?" That is not possible. The easiest way and the possible way is to attain to the knowledge of the self. It is the after-effect of this attainment that will give one keen sight into outside things, into the spirit of outward things.
The question is about oneself, the knowledge of self, what that knowledge is. Do we know ourselves? None of us, for one moment, will think that we do not know ourselves. That is the difficulty. Everyone says, "I know myself better than I know anybody else. What is there to be learned in myself? Is it the anatomy of the body?"
Yes, the first thing is to understand the construction of the body; that is the first lesson.
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