Knowing is more crucial than knowledge || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: What is the place of knowledge in life?
Speaker: Is knowledge all about gathering information? is knowledge about what others have said, what is written in the books? Who is a knowledgeable person? There are two separate words and both should be understood very clearly.
One is, ‘Knowledge’ and the other is ‘Knowing’. Knowledge is just information provided in a comprehensible form. It comes from outside and just gets stored in the brain. All knowledge comes from others and all knowledge comes from the past whereas, knowing happens right now. What is happening with you right now, is knowing. Knowing is understanding.
There is great difference between knowing and knowledge. Knowing is far more important than knowledge. Knowledge comes from outside, knowing is totally yours. Knowing is the function of intelligence. Knowledge is function of the senses and the brain. Right now what is happening? Your senses are receiving what I am saying. You are looking at me, you are hearing, they are carrying these inputs to your brain and this knowledge is going to the brain. But whatever is happening, the real thing is happening in your intelligence. That is not knowledge. That is real knowing.
See, if knowledge was the real thing, this mike should have been a great scholar by now. So many people have come here and spoken into this mike. They have given it so much of knowledge, but it has no knowing. If knowledge was the real thing, then hard discs would have been pundits; as they contain so much of knowledge, 1000 GB of knowledge. If knowledge were the real thing then Google search engine would have been the wisest person. Encyclopedia would have ruled the world as they contain so much of knowledge. But the case is different here.
All of you are carrying books; look how poor they are. If a fire breaks out here; then these books can’t even walk on their own and they contain so much of knowledge. They would be dependent upon you to move out. That camera that is recording everything, that is listening and everything is going into its memory would just keep standing there and get burnt; because it does not have intelligence. Knowledge and intelligence are different. Knowledge and knowing are different. Yes you must get knowledge but it will always remain secondary. The real thing is knowing. Are you getting it?
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
