What is wisdom? It certainly is not knowledge. Knowledge is a pretender, it is a false coin. It looks like wisdom and because it looks like wisdom it is very dangerous. One can be easily deceived by it.

 

Knowledge comes from without, wisdom arises within. Knowledge is a commodity, you can purchase it in the marketplace; it is sold, it is bought. Wisdom is not a commodity, you have to risk your life to find it. It is not a bargain, it is gambling.

 

Knowledge consists of all that you have known in the past. Wisdom has nothing to do with the past at all, it is of the present. It has nothing to do with the past and it has nothing to do with the future either because the future is nothing but a projection of the past – modified, decorated here and there, a little changed, polished, painted, but it is the same old thing, renovated.

 

Knowledge exists in time. Time consists of the past and the future. Wisdom knows nothing of time, wisdom only knows of eternity. Eternity consists only of now, this moment, the present. Eternity does not come, does not go, it is always here.

 

Wisdom brings peace, knowledge brings anxiety. Howsoever alike they appear, they are diametrically opposite. Wisdom brings contentment, utter contentment. Knowledge brings more and more discontent, because mind exists only in the desire for more. Mind is nothing but another name for the desire of getting more and more and more. It is a constant hankering for more. If you have money, it desires more money; if you have power, it desires more power; if you have knowledge, it desires more knowledge. It is the same process. Objects differ but the process remains the same.

 

Wisdom knows nothing of “more,” it is utter contentment. And when the “more” is there surrounding you, you are in a constant tension, a chronic tension because nothing seems to be enough. You live in despair and anguish.

 

Knowledge gratifies the ego. In wisdom, ego simply disappears, it is not found at all. Knowledge knows of distinctions, knowledge depends on distinctions: this and that, here and there, now and then, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, the Devil and God. Knowledge is dualistic – I and thou – that’s its form. It divides reality. Knowledge is schizophrenic, wisdom unites.

 

Wisdom means unio mystica. Then there is no God and no Devil, only one is. What name you want to give to that one is just an arbitrary choice. You can call it God, but remember it is not God as opposed to the Devil. The God of wisdom is not opposed to the Devil; it contains the Devil in himself. You can call it Tao, you can call it dharma, you can call it Logos, or whatever you will. But remember one thing, it contains the opposite. That is the essential thing to be remembered. When a wise man asserts the word God, the Devil is contained in it.

 

Do you know the origin of the word Devil? It comes from a Sanskrit root dev, the same root from where the Sanskrit word devata comes; they both come from the same root. Devata means God, Devil means Satan, but they originate in the same root, dev. It is from dev that the English word Devil comes, and also the English word divine. The divine and the Devil are not two things.

 

Existence is one, utterly one, it is an organic unity. So when the wise man uses the word God it contains the Devil. When the wise man uses the word light, it contains all that is dark in it. It is comprehensive, it is inclusive, it does not exclude anything.

 

But when the man of knowledge uses the same words, his connotation is different. When he uses the word God, it is against the Devil. When he uses the word I, it is against thou. When he uses the word life, it is against death.

 

Wisdom knows no distinctions. All distinctions have to be dropped; only then does one become wise. The distinctions that morality creates, the distinctions upon which our mundane life exists and is built upon, all those distinctions have to be dropped. The distinction between man and woman is superficial, just on the surface. The distinction between matter and mind is also superficial, just on the surface. Matter is mind asleep, mind is matter awake. The distinction between the body and the soul is superficial. The body is only the visible part of the soul, and the soul is the invisible part of the body; they are not two. Wisdom knows nothing of the two.

 

And this wisdom is not accumulated by accumulating information. It does not happen sitting in a library or in a university. It happens when you dissolve into your own core. It happens by going withinward, it happens when you have touched your rock bottom. When you have touched your very ground it explodes. All distinctions disappear, suddenly life is one. Everything is connected with everything else, everything is dependent on everything else, everything is a member of everything else.

 

Then you don’t see the tree as separate from the earth – it is not. Then you don’t see the tree as separate from the sun, because it is not. Then the tree is joined with the sun by subtle rays. Without the sun the tree will disappear; it will not be green anymore, no flowers will come to it. And without the earth there will be no juice in it, it will not be alive; and without the ocean it will also die. If you go deep into the tree you will find it contains the whole existence.

 

Alfred Tennyson is right when he says, “If you can know a single flower, root and all, you would have known the whole existence.” Why? – because even a single flower contains all. It has been part of the sun, part of the moon, part of the millions of stars. They have all poured themselves into this small flower. It has been contributed to by all: by the earth, and by things which you don’t see connected at all. A child playing by the rosebush has helped the rosebush to grow; without the child playing around it the rosebush would have been different.

 

Now there are scientific ways to know about this, that when a child is dancing around the rosebush, happy and singing, there is a connection with the rose. The rose feels the dance, the vibe, grows faster. Now it is a well-established fact that if roses hear music, they grow faster, they become bigger. If plants hear music they grow faster, they bring bigger fruits, and they bring fruits sooner than they would have done otherwise. If they are fed with noise, not with music, not with harmonious notes but with discordant noise, their growth suffers. They remain stunted. Flowers come, but not to their optimum; something remains retarded.

 

So everything contributes to everything else. You are whatsoever you are because existence is whatsoever it is. You are an intrinsic part in this existence. Once you enter your own being, you will become available to the whole and the whole will become available to you. You will be able to see in a new perspective.

 

So wisdom is not knowledge. Then what is it? Wisdom is meditation, wisdom is silence, wisdom is quietude, wisdom is wu wei. Wisdom means a state of utter silence in absolute communion with existence. It is an orgasmic experience of being in tune with the whole.

 

The knowledgeable man is just like a donkey carrying the load of the past – of the scriptures, of theories, philosophies and theologies. He cannot answer a single real question, although he can answer millions of unreal questions.

 

A Jew driving a small cart drawn by a donkey came to a toll bridge. The toll collector came out of his house and said, “Here you’ve got to pay a toll before you can cross this bridge.”

 

“What! Pay a toll?”

 

“Yes, five cents to cross the bridge.”

 

After an argument the Jew paid the five cents and went on. In the afternoon he came back again, but this time he had the donkey sitting on the seat and he was dragging the cart himself.

 

The toll man came out and said, “Here you know you’ve got to pay five cents.”

 

The Jew shook his head, and pointing to the donkey said, “Don’t talk with me – ask the driver.”

 

The pundit, the scholar, the academician, is just like a donkey sitting in a cart pretending to be the driver. He is not a driver; he knows nothing. Although he has gathered much knowledge, still he knows nothing.

 

Knowing is a totally different phenomenon than knowledge.

 

The archbishop said once he was visiting a small Catholic parish in a mining district for the purpose of administering confirmation. During the course of the exercises he asked one nervous little girl what matrimony was.

 

“It is a state of terrible torment which those who enter are compelled to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world,” she said.

 

“No, no,” remonstrated her rector. “That isn’t matrimony. That’s the definition of purgatory.”

 

“Leave her alone,” said the archbishop. “Maybe she is right. What do you and I know about it?”

 

Knowing is through experiencing; knowledge is not your own experience. You can know millions of things without knowing them, but then don’t depend on it. It cannot be in communion with truth, it cannot reveal to you the mystery of life.

 

Two ladies in Boston heard the bishop give a rousing sermon on the beauties of married life. The ladies left the church feeling uplifted and contented.

 

“It was a fine sermon His Reverence gave us this morning,” observed one.

 

“That it was,” agreed the other, “and I wish I knew as little about the matter as he does.”

 

There is a way of knowing without knowing at all – that is knowledge. There is a way of knowing by really knowing – that is the way of wisdom. Wisdom is existential, knowledge is intellectual. In knowledge only part of your mind is involved, in wisdom your totality is immersed. And the difference is tremendous, the difference is incredible, immeasurable.

 

To know about reality is not really to know it. The “about” takes you round and round, but never to the point. It is beating round the bush. You can go on beating round and round, but it is almost futile.

 

Wisdom needs a direct approach. Wisdom needs to jump into the center of the thing, not going round and round. Going round and round, you can become acquainted, but to be acquainted is not to know. In the ordinary sense, whatsoever is called knowledge is a misnomer because it is nothing but memory. It is not knowledge. Memory is not knowledge, it is parrotlike.

 

Knowledge is real only when you are an eyewitness to it – seeing is believing. But the people in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques, they say just the opposite. They say, “Believing is seeing.” How can believing be seeing? Believing can only be deceiving. Believing can create a kind of hallucination around you. If you really believe too much in something you may start seeing it. But it is not there, it has been created by your mind; it is just your projection.

 

Never start with belief, otherwise you will never know the truth. Go empty into the search, with no belief, with no disbelief either. Just go open, not knowing this way or that. Go innocent, utterly naked.

 

 - Unio Mystica, Vol. 1, #9