The compulsion to seek deeper understanding has an innocent quality—aspiring to replace false knowledge with truer insight. While it is admirable in many ways, Bhagavan directs us toward a higher knowing—an unknowing—through vichara which promises to change the internal landscape forever. Bhagavan guides our enquiry with the following penetrating questions:
Are there two ‘I’s? How does this question arise? Do I remain to ask it or not? Can I find my Self as in a mirror? Because our outlook has been outwardly bent, it has lost sight of the Self, and our vision has become external. The Self is not found in external objects. Turn your look inward and plunge downward. (Talks, §238, 20th July 1936.)
If man is a dwarf of himself, to quote Emerson, it is because he overestimates his knowledge, fails to fully appreciate the dual aspect of knowing—its capacity to lead and to mislead.
To be sure, knowing is our diamond-sharp digging tool, and yet, confusing the tool for the destination—taking the reflection in the mirror for the Self—leads us perilously astray. Knowing is capable of veiling and revealing, capable of ignorance and wisdom, bondage and liberation. Bhagavan illuminates the needed distinction:
The Self reflected in the mind’s distorting mirror may appear to move. Know that it is only the image moving; the true Self never moves or changes. (GVK, §98.)
Over the centuries, many have mistakenly believed they could reach the Self by knowing things about the Self. Bhagavan assures us, however, that only direct experience of the Self will win our freedom.
Conceptual understanding reflects truth dimly; silent intuition reveals it clearly. Although the light is from the same source, the mirror is not the Self. Nevertheless, the mirror can point us away from darkness toward the eternal reality. As our enquiry deepens and matures, seeker and mirror alike disappear, Bhagavan tells us, leaving the Self to shine on its own—changeless, pure, and everlasting.
The Mundaka Upanishad beautifully concludes:
In Him are woven heaven, earth, and sky, and the mind with all its senses. Know Him—the Self alone—and leave all else aside. —
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