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moment you become aware of the traffic of the mind the metaphysical sleep is broken, you are awake for the first time. Knowing that mind is separate is enough to bring the revolution. The moment it becomes your own experience that you are not the mind, you have entered into the kingdom of god.
So in a sense the distance is vast, in a sense there is no distance; just a single insight is enough and like a blow of a sword one is cut away from the mind; the identity with the mind is dropped. Then mind remains; you can use it whenever you want and you can turn it off whenever you want. On or off -- it depends on you. Mind is no more your master.
Ordinarily it is the master and you are the slave. Meditation makes you the master and mind starts functioning as a slave. And as a slave mind is beautiful, as a master it is very dangerous.
(The next new sannyasin, listed as a mathematician, was named Gyan Atit -- transcendence of knowledge!)
Knowledge is a barrier, not a bridge. It prevents you from knowing because it gives you a false sense of knowing. And remember, the danger is never from ignorance, the danger is from so-called knowledge. The ignorant person is far more innocent, in a far healthier state than the knowledgeable, because the ignorant knows he is ignorant. Knowing that he is ignorant he remains humble, he remains simple, and out of that humbleness and simplicity there is a possibility of wisdom.
But the knowledgeable person covers up his ignorance and starts behaving as if he knows, but all that he knows is "as if". Slowly slowly he can become auto-hypnotised by that "as if" and he can forget the "as if" completely and he can start believing that he knows. Now this man is in real trouble because he will stop enquiring and he will become very egoistic.
The pundits, the scholars, the professors, are very egoistic people for the simple reason that they believe they know -- and they know nothing. And everybody is knowledgeable, more or less.
One has to put aside all knowledge, one has to look beyond it. Beyond is the world of the stars. Knowledge keeps you tethered to the earth, it never allows you to see the stars.
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