Do you know yourself?

[Guest guest]

It is an incident of a mid day. Some people came and said: "God is not there and religion is all hypocrisy." On hearing their words, I started laughing and they asked: "Why do you laugh?" I said: "Because ignorance is vocal and knowledge is silent. Is it so easy to say anything about the existence or non-existence of God? Are not all decisions, arising out of the meagre knowledge of man, worth laughing?" Those who know the limits of their own knowledge do not take decisions; but remain speechless; and in that mysterious moment they sometimes exceed their limits also.

At that time, they know themselves and also the truth; because truth exists in the self and in truth is the existence of the self. Is not a drop in the ocean and ocean in the drop? Is it proper that the drop, without knowing itself, should want to know the ocean? And when it fails to find it, it might say that the ocean does not exist. If the drop can know itself it can know the ocean, also. The thought of God is meaningless. I ask you: "Do you know yourself? Is any one without this condition competent to take a decision about the existence or non-existence of God?" "Do you know yourself?", on hearing this question those friends started looking at one another. And do not you also hearing this question start looking at one another? But remember that without knowing the self there is no utility or appreciation of life. I repeated to those friends the conversation that took place in Greece thousands of years ago: Some one asked an old saint: What is the biggest thing among the things of this world? The saint answered: "The sky; because whatever exists, exists in the sky and the sky itself does not exist in anything; He asked: "And what is the best?'' The saint said: "Good temper; because everything can be sacrificed on good temper and good temper cannot be lost for anything." He asked: "And the most mobile?" The saint said: "Thought" He asked: "And the easiest?" The saint said: "Advice".

He asked: "And the most difficult?" The saint said: "Knowledge of the self". Surely it appears to be most difficult to know the self, because in order to know it everything else has to be given up. Without giving up all knowledge, the knowledge of the self is not possible. Ignorance is an obstruction in knowledge of the self. Knowledge is an obstruction in knowledge of the self. But there is another state also where there is neither knowledge nor ignorance. It is in that state that the knowledge of the self manifests itself. I call that very state as 'samadhi', that is meditation.