This audio clip captures an interesting exchange
between UG and an intense, stubborn questioner.
UG goes to great lengths explaining that all ‘intellectual understanding’ is futile, leading only to the burden of knowledge.
He makes it clear that intellect can never solve
our living problems like the problems of anger, jealousy or hatred etc.
Intellectual understanding gives rise to mental concepts
or notions or conclusions that in no way can resolve any emotional
problems. We are left saddled with unwanted ‘knowledge
dump’ that clutters and clogs our minds.
At some point, the questioner insists that she
gets what UG is saying, that she ‘understands’ the futility of intellect, but goes
on to question him further. This is when UG cuts her off, delivering a clincher,
a real eye opener for all of us,
“No, you have not come to that
point…no!”
Saying that we intellectually understand life, or
its workings, is pure hogwash. If we have really understood anything at all,
there can never be any doubts or questions, avers UG.
‘True understanding’ or ‘seeing’ (sages are referred to as ‘seers’ for a reason) is beyond all reasoning and ends
all questions, whereas logical reasoning or ‘intellectual understanding’ leads
to more and more questions.
****
Intellect
is the ‘cognitive’ or ‘thinking’ tool.
The dictionary defines the word cognitive as
“of, relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering)”
And,
“based on or capable of being reduced
to empirical, factual
knowledge.”
(Merriam Webster online)
There are serious limitations to our intellect
that we fail to see.
Intellect reasons
while biology responds.
When we come face to face with a deadly cobra,
there is no thinking, there is only action - we either flee or freeze or kill. This is a pure biological response where
intellect or thought plays absolutely no role.
Also, anyone with a superior intellect can easily win
us over to his or her point of view. This could be an intellectual trap that
could prove costly!
Also, intellect could lead us into serious trouble
with its fallacious reasoning. False beliefs, perverted ideas, misleading
notions and dangerous isms and ideologies, all take root in a perverted
intellect. This is singularly responsible for the many divisions, conflicts,
frictions and wars raging across the globe.
Problems of intellect cannot be resolved by the
intellect. Period.
“Intelligence is to know one’s
limitations” - UG.
Yes, it is to know the true limitations
of intellect!
****
Transcription
You have not (yet) come to that point…no” –
UG
UG: The problem with
you is that you know a lot. All that you know has not helped you. This is all
that I am saying. So, you want to know more and more and more.
So, how do you think that all that you know comes
to an end, as long as you are adding something more? I am not saying that it should
come to an end.
So, that’s the reason why you always ask the question
– how, (what is the) cause of this?
This is not important, it is there.
By knowing the origin or the cause of it, is not
going to help the situation anyway. You are adding more and more. I don’t know,
I am not at all interested in finding out the origin. If I say this is the
origin, it is not in any way (going to) help the situation.
Q: I just can’t accept it - that
is it, it’s just the way it is. I want
to understand, I want to find out, I want to know why, how and where, and…
UG: That (wanting to
know) is the only way it (‘thinker’) can survive, and it can maintain its
continuity.
Q: What is my interest, in maintaining it?
UG: To survive, yes, to survive! Not you, not the
physical thing, that ‘movement in the knowledge’
(‘I’ or ‘self’) that is there, it can survive only by demanding to know more
and more and more.
You forget that knowing all that has not helped
you so far, to solve the problems you are interested in solving. Knowing more
and more about electronics and computer system, you can go on creating more and
more (technologies) you see, but, here, what all you know about it has not
helped you to deal with these ‘living problems.’ By knowing more and more, how
do you think you will (solve)? It’s a hope that somebody, may be the wise man,
the wisest man or the enlightened man, he knows, I don’t know, you go there.
Don’t trust anybody who says, “I know, you do not
know”. He does not know a damn thing!
Q: I don’t have any other means…
UG: You don’t have any other means. That’s all!
That (knowledge) has not helped you so far. That
(intellect) is not intended for this (to solve any ‘living problems’) at all.
When once, this dawns on you that, that’s the only
instrument you have – don’t talk of intuition, don’t talk of another way of
perceiving things, another way of looking (at) things, another way of observing
things, don’t talk that at all. That’s the only instrument you have, intellect is the only instrument you have, and that has not
helped you to solve your problems.
Q: I know that…
UG: No, you have not come
to that point…no!
Q: No
UG: Even if you say yes, and repeat the sentence,
there is no other instrument!
If you say there is, then you are in trouble,
there is somebody there, who will exploit you, you don’t have to take my word.
So, this is also another kind of exploitation, it becomes. You place your
confidence in me. Don’t bother about that. You are not sure, that, that is the
only instrument.
Because we have been told there is an intuitive
way, this way, ‘understanding’ and all that kind of thing. You have not come to the point that the intellect is not the
(instrument). We all say that intellect is not the thing, we replace
it with heart, the feeling... all of them are there. Feelings are no different
from thoughts.
As far as you are concerned, you may put them
(feelings) on a different level, higher level, some other level and think that
‘to feel’ is more important than to ‘think’, you see.
But those are one and the same, there is no difference.
So, that (intellect) is not the instrument and there is no other instrument.
So, you don’t have to do a thing.
Q: It is frustrating…
UG: It is not frustrating, then you don’t have to do a thing in life, not a thing!
THERE IS NO PROBLEM (THERE)!
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