The Dexter Sinister
Explain in the context of that remark how science has managed to make such spectacular progress in the last 400 years or so. It's built on the discoveries of those who went before, on prior knowledge, there's no other way to do it. Do you ever actually think about the meaning and implications of the stuff you write before letting your fingers go wild on the keyboard?
Knowledge is conditioning. Knowledge does not give freedom. One may know how to build an airplane and fly to the other end of the world in a few hours, but this is not freedom. Knowledge is not the creative factor, for knowledge is continuous, and that which has continuity can never lead to the implicit, the imponderable,
the unknown. Knowledge is a hindrance to the open, to the unknown. Without freedom, without the open mind, there can be no understanding. Understanding
does not come with knowledge. In the interval between words, between thoughts, comes understanding; this interval is silence unbroken by knowledge, it is the open, the imponderable, the implicit.Can there be discovery without knowledge Dexter ?" Discovery takes place, not when the mind is crowded with knowledge, but when knowledge is absent; only then is there stillness and space, and in this state understanding or discovery comes into being. Knowledge is undoubtedly useful at one level, but at another it is positively harmful. When knowledge is used as a means of self-aggrandizement, to puff oneself up, then it is mischievous, breeding separation and enmity. Self-expansion is disintegration, whether in the name of God, of the Forum, or of an ideology. Knowledge at one level, though conditioning, is necessary: language, technique, and so on. This conditioning is a safeguard, an essential for outer living; but when this conditioning is used psychologically, when knowledge becomes a means of psychological comfort, gratification, then it inevitably breeds conflict and confusion. Besides, what do you mean by knowing Dexter ? What actually do you know? You mean you have lots of information, data about many things. You have gathered certain facts; and then what? Does information about the disaster of war prevent wars? You have, I am sure, plenty of data about the effects of anger and violence within oneself and in society; but has this information put an end to hate and antagonism? You have this vast information, and are you any less ambitious, less violent, less self-centred? Because you have studied revolutions, the history of inequality, are you free from feeling superior, giving importance to yourself( eg . I am intelligent)? ? Because you have extensive knowledge of the world's miseries and disasters, do you love? Besides, what is it that you know, of what have you knowledge? Knowledge is experience accumulated through the ages. In one form it is tradition, and in another it is instinct, both conscious and unconscious. The hidden memories and experiences, whether handed down or acquired, act as a guide and shape our action; these memories, both racial and individual, are essential, because they help and protect man.
Action shaped and guided by fear is no action at all. Action which is the outcome of racial prejudices, fears, hopes, illusions, is conditioned; and all conditioning, , only breeds further conflict and sorrow. You are conditioned as a christian in accordance with a tradition which has been going on for centuries; and you respond to stimuli, to social changes and conflicts, as a christian. You respond according to your conditioning, according to your past experiences, knowledge, so new experience only conditions further. Experience according to a belief, according to an ideology, is merely the continuation of that belief, the perpetuation of an idea. Such experience only strengthens belief. Idea separates, and your experience according to an idea, a pattern, makes you more separative. Experience as knowledge, as a psychological accumulation, only conditions, and experience is then another way of self-aggrandizement Knowledge as experience at the psychological level is a hindrance to understanding. Experience, knowledge, which is memory, is useful at certain levels; but experience as a means of strengthening the psychological "me," the ego, only leads to illusion and sorrow. And what can we know if the mind is filled with experiences, memories, knowledge? Can there be experiencing if we know? Does not the known prevent experiencing? You may know the name of that flower, but do you thereby experience the flower? Experiencing comes fist, and the naming only gives strength to the experience. The naming prevents further experiencing.
Knowledge is superficial, and can the superficial lead to the deep? Can the mind, which is the result of the known, of the past, ever go above and beyond its own projection? To discover, it must stop projecting. Without its projections, there is no mind. Knowledge, the past, can project only that which is the known. The instrument of the known can never be the discoverer. The known must cease for discovery; the experience must cease for experiencing. Knowledge is a hindrance to understanding. So Dexter,what have you left if you are without knowledge, experience, memory? You are then nothing. Are you anything more than that now? When you say, without knowledge we are nothing,you are merely making a verbal assertion without experiencing that state. When you make that statement there is a sense of fear, the fear of being naked. Without these accretions you are nothing - which is the truth. And why not be that? Why all these pretensions and conceits? You have clothed this nothingness with fancies, with hopes, with various comforting ideas; but beneath these coverings you are nothing, not as some philosophical abstraction, but actually nothing. How ashamed you are to say you do not know!You cover the fact of not knowing with words and information. Actually, you do not know your wife, Dexter ,your neighbour; how can you when you do not know yourself? You have a lot of information, conclusions, explanations about yourself, but you are not aware of that which is, the implicit. Explanations, conclusions, called knowledge, prevent you from experiencing of that Which Is .
