Life Ahead by Krishnamurti

Author:Krishnamurti
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundations
Published: 2014-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

11

Knowledge is not everything

You will remember that we have been talking about fear. Now, is not fear responsible for the accumulation of knowledge? This is a difficult subject, so let us see if we can go into it, let us consider it very carefully.

Human beings accumulate and worship knowledge, not only scientific but so-called spiritual knowledge. They think that knowledge is so important in life—knowledge of what has happened, and of what is going to happen. This whole process of accumulating information, worshipping knowledge—does it not arise from the background of fear? We are afraid that without knowledge we would be lost, we would not know how to conduct ourselves. So, through reading what the sages have said, through other people’s beliefs and experiences, and also through our own experiences, we gradually build up a background of knowledge which becomes tradition; and behind this tradition we take refuge. We think this knowledge or tradition is essential, and that without it we would be lost, we would not know what to do.

Now, when we talk about knowledge, what do we mean by that word? What is it that we know? What do you really know, when you come to consider the knowledge you have accumulated? At a certain level, in science, engineering, and so on, knowledge is important; but beyond that, what is it that we know?

Have you ever considered this process of accumulating knowledge? Why is it that you study, why do you pass examinations? Knowledge is necessary at a certain level, is it not? Without a knowledge of mathematics and other subjects, one could not be an engineer or a scientist. Social relationship is built upon such knowledge, and we would not be able to earn a livelihood without it. But beyond that kind of knowledge, what do we know? Beyond that, what is the nature of knowledge?

What do we mean when we say that knowledge is necessary to find God, or that knowledge is necessary to understand oneself, or that knowledge is essential to find a way through all the turmoils of life? Here we mean knowledge as experience; and what is this experience? What is it that we know through experience? Is not this knowledge used by the ego, by the ‘me’, to strengthen itself?

Say, for instance, that I have achieved a certain social standing. This experience, with its feelings of success, of prestige, of power, gives me a certain sense of assurance, of comfort. So the knowledge of my success, the knowledge that I am somebody, that I have position, power, strengthens the ‘me’, the ego, does it not?

Have you not noticed how knowledge-puffed the pundits are, or how knowledge gives to your father, your mother, your teacher the attitude, ‘I have experienced more than you have; I know and you do not’? So knowledge, which is merely information, gradually becomes the sustenance of vanity, the nourishment of the ego, the ‘me’. For the ego cannot exist without this or some other form of parasitical dependence.

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