| |
naked. If we are clever we can even make our nudity even more obvious through the kind of clothes we wear and the way we wear them. A naked man, a naked woman, is never as nude as the illusion that can be created by wearing right clothes. Your words, your false understanding, will not eradicate your inner poverty, but only hide it.
And there are times when your false understanding is used in such a way that through your scholarliness only your foolishness is revealed more profoundly. The fool has a kind of innocence, a kind of simplicity about him. But a pundit? The foolishness of the pundit is very complex, very intricate. And if you have even a little insight into things you will see that it is difficult to find a bigger fool than the pundit. His foolishness shows in all directions. He has covered it well, but all that one covers only testifies that one is aware of it. All that we cover is exhibited too, because all our covering declares that something has been covered, that something was there worth covering. The ignorant and uneducated man who has not covered himself has the nudity of a primitive native; his nudity is unselfconscious, he is nude without knowing that he is nude. But the foolishness of the pundit is like the nudity of a prostitute, who is decked out in an array of splendid garments, but all the covering is only to display the nudity beneath.
The very reason for covering something is the fear of its exposure. If you can understand that verbal understanding is no understanding at all, then the first step has been taken. If you can know that knowledge derived from the scriptures is not knowledge, then the first ray of knowledge has descended on you. And then it won't be difficult to put the scriptures away; then it won't be difficult to detach yourself from the web of words and come out of it. Right now it is difficult because if appears as if it is understanding. If we hold pebbles in our hand, and believe them to be diamonds, it is difficult to part with them -- not because of the stones, but because of our belief that they are diamonds. The moment one comes to recognize that they are stones, that seeing them as diamonds was an illusion,
|
|
|