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QUESTIONER: HOW IS THAT A HINDRANCE?
It is a hindrance because when someone comes to conceive that he knows and really he does not know -- he has only been collecting information and this collection of inner information gives him a conception of knowledge -- then he won't try for further knowledge, then he won't try for himself. Then it will become a hindrance, because he has come to conclude that he knows, and really he doesn't know. This misconception of knowing will be the hindrance. And further, when the mind is enclosed in information - and there is much information around the mind, much knowledge, much scripture -- a barrier is erected between oneself and that which is. When you come to a flower, if you don't know anything about it, you have to contemplate it. But if you know something about it, then you pass it by, because the barrier of knowledge... you know, I know about it: this is a rose, this is a beautiful flower, you say, and you pass on. There has been no living contact between that which is called the rose and the mind which is in a wrongly conceived enclosure of knowledge. There is no living contact. The rose can be known, not through any knowledge about the rose, but through the direct contact with its living existence. But still a rose is something outside. You cannot even think about yourSELF, because who is to think? And every type of information is a part of your thinking. It makes your mind a thinking machine. You go on thinking and thinking, and reading and reading, and you go around and around a concept. But if one is to know oneself, one has to cease to think. Because, the very thinking leads you afar.
SECOND QUESTIONER: THEN WE SHOULD NOT READ BOOKS ABOUT...?
No, I am not saying that. I am not saying that you should not read, neither am I saying that the information is of no use. I am not saying that. I am saying this: you must read, you must know, but you must know also that this knowing is simply information, and not knowledge for you. If you are aware of it, then it can't become a hindrance, then your mind is always open. You are always ready to learn, you are always ready to discover. Then you have not arrived,
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