Swami teaches... Wisdom and knowledge - bridge to happiness

[Guest guest]

Sai Ram Light and Love

 

Swami teaches... (17 January 2005)

Wisdom and Knowledge - Bridge to Happiness

All humanity long for and ceaselessly search happiness without knowing

exactly the essential component of it.

Before seeking happiness through the senses, the mind and the intellect, one

has to examine whether he/she is a bundle of sense, or a mind playing with them

or an intellect that rationalises the mental cravings. The body is the gross

body; the water which it is intended to contain and carry is the subtle body;

the reality of the potter who shaped it and willed it is the causal body. The

three bodies which each has are called respectively Sthuula (gross), Suukshma

(subtle) and Karana (causal).

There are three stages of wisdom correlated to those three bodies: Jnaana,

Sujnaana and Vijnaana. Knowledge that is gained by the analysis of the

objective world and the similarities of the behaviour of its components is

Jnaana. When this knowledge is further studied and practised to subserve the

best interests of the individual society, it becomes Sujnaana, or beneficial

wisdom. The intentions and urges that arise from the purified consciousness

saturated with the divine qualities emanating from the sage is Vijnaana, the

highest wisdom. It is to be noted that the word Vijnaana is often misused to

indicate mere Jnaana, or coordinated information, analysed information about

sense perceptions arising out of contact with the material objective world.

In fact, there is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge

is something which is related only to the head. It is possible that by

conducting some enquiries and by working with some special types of machines,

one can reach an important position in the matter of acquiring knowledge. One

has to say that to some extent, this is simply book knowledge. Just by such an

acquisition, our capacity to comprehend truth is not going to improve. What we

call knowledge is the essence of all sciences. Wisdom, on the other hand, is

something which we acquire as a result of practice. Knowledge acquired from

books differs very much from knowledge acquired from experience. Wisdom is

acquired from experience.

 

In order that you may clearly understand these things, let us take the case

of a very large ocean. If we take water from that ocean and put it in our

mouth, we will get the taste of its being very salty. If the same salt water is

converted into water vapour by the heat of the sun, constituted into clouds and

then comes back as rain on the earth, that water will be very sweet. This can

be compared to wisdom born out of experience. It is only when we take the

matter that is contained in the ocean of books or scriptures and use our

Buddhi, the intelligence, which can be compared to the sun's heat and convert

it into clouds, which can be compared to Prema or love, then only, like the

water that results after the rain, our knowledge will be sweet and this will be

called wisdom. In every effort and in every thing that we do, cleansing or

purification is very essential.

In no human endeavour can we bypass this process of purification. Once the

intelligence is purified and dedicated to spiritual effort, there should be no

slipping back whatever the obstacle, whatever the temptation.

If you really want to assess the human beings and assign values, you have to

see and assess how these different persons are behaving, what their character

is, what changes have come about in them after birth and what are the paths

which they are following. If therefore, one wishes to change him/herself, to

turn to the spiritual path, there is a need to take great care about the way in

which one behaves.

Intelligence, intellect, intuition - these three govern the thoughts and

actions of human being. One leads to another. (These three channel a human

being to obtain skills through knowledge and to transform the obtained

knowledge to wisdom).

The whole duty of humans is to engage in good acts with the gross body,

scatter good thoughts and good influences to other human beings and environment

with his/her subtle body, and earn self-realisation and bliss through his/her

causal body. (Reet's compilation from: Divine Discourse of Bhagawan Sathya Sai

Baba "The Three Bodies" 23 November 1972, Prashanthi Nilayam and The Divine

Discourse Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba, "Vedic Truths belong to the Whole World,"

Summer Course in Spirituality and Indian Culture, May 1972, Brindavan).

PS:

My thoughts, not exactly concern to Swami's text in bracets.

 

Namaste - Reet