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Drop knowledge and know; win by losing || Acharya Prashant, on Sri Ramakrishna (2015)
Acharya Prashant
520 views
9 years ago
Learned Ignorance
Philosophy
Truth
Logic
Shri Ramakrishna
Keshav Chandra Sen
Innocence
Surrender
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that learned ignorance marks the end of philosophy and the beginning of religion. While philosophy seeks truth, it often results in a collection of concepts and logic that fail to capture the essence of truth. He describes the wise man as one who is free from the arrogance of arguments and cleverness, adopting a simple and direct approach. Truth is not something distant or beyond us; it is approachable and obvious once the argumentative mind is dropped. Using the example of Shri Ramakrishna, Acharya Prashant highlights the beauty of divine foolishness and childlike innocence, where one transcends formal knowledge to reach a state of supreme knowing. Acharya Prashant narrates an encounter between the scholar Keshav Chandra Sen and Shri Ramakrishna to illustrate the power of the heart over the mind. When Sen attempted to demolish Shri Ramakrishna's beliefs with rational arguments, Shri Ramakrishna responded with genuine joy and affection rather than counter-arguments. By celebrating his opponent's brilliance and offering him sweets, Shri Ramakrishna disarmed the scholar's aggression. This story serves to demonstrate that while the mind seeks to win through aggression and perpetually loses, the heart wins through surrender and the eagerness to lose. True understanding comes not through language or scholarship, but through a reasonless attraction and a state of being that surpasses intellectual knowledge.