[ramakrishna] Naropa's Knowledge

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I really enjoyed this one. Thank you.

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Anurag Goel

Ramakrishna

Sunday, July 30, 2000 5:11 AM

[ramakrishna] Naropa's Knowledge

Cross posting from advaitin Naropa's haunting visionTruth is your own experience, your own vision. Even ifI have seen the truth and I tell you, the moment Itell you it will become a lie for you, not a truth.For me it was truth, for me it came through the eyes.It was my vision. For you, it will not be your vision,it will be a borrowed thing. It will be a belief, itwill be knowledge--not knowing. And if you startbelieving in it, you will be believing a lie. Now remember it. Even a truth becomes a lie if itenters your being through the wrong door. The truthhas to enter through the front door, through the eyes.Truth is a vision. One has to see it.Naropa was a great scholar, a great pundit, with tenthousand disciples of his own. One day he was sittingsurrounded by thousands of scriptures--ancient, veryancient, rare. Suddenly he fell asleep, must have beentired, and he saw a vision. He saw a very, very old, ugly, horrible woman--a hag.Her ugliness was such that he started trembling in hissleep. It was so nauseating he wanted to escape--butwhere to escape, where to go? He was caught, as if hypnotized by the old hag. Hereyes were like magnets. "What are you studying?" asked the old woman. He said, "Philosophy, religion, epistemology,language, grammar, logic." The old woman asked again, "Do you understand them?" Naropa said, "Of course... Yes, I understand them." The woman asked again, "Do you understand the word, orthe sense?" Thousands of questions had been asked to Naropa in hislife--thousands of students always asking,inquiring--but nobody had asked this: whether heunderstands the word, or the sense. And the woman'seyes were so penetrating--those eyes were going to thevery depth of his being, and it was impossible to lie.To anybody else he would have said, "Of course Iunder-stand the sense," but to this woman, thishorrible-looking woman, he had to say the truth. Hesaid, "I understand the words." The woman was very happy. She started dancing andlaughing, and her ugliness was transformed; a subtlebeauty started coming out of her being. Thinking, "Ihave made her so happy. Why not make her a little morehappy?" Naropa then said, "And yes, I understand thesense also." The woman stopped laughing, stopped dancing. Shestarted crying and weeping and all her ugliness wasback--a thousandfold more. Naropa said, "Why are youweeping and crying? And why were you laughing anddancing before?" The woman said, "I was happy because a great scholarlike you didn't lie. But now I am crying and weepingbecause you have lied to me. I know--and youknow--that you don't understand the sense." The vision disappeared and Naropa was transformed. Heescaped from the university, he never again touched ascripture in his life. He became completely ignorant,he understood--the woman was nobody outside, it wasjust a projection. It was Naropa's own being, throughknowledge, that had became ugly. Just this muchunderstanding, that "I don't understand the sense,"and the ugliness was transformed immediately into abeautiful phenomenon. This vision of Naropa is very significant. Unless youfeel that knowledge is useless you will never be insearch of wisdom. You will carry the false cointhinking that this is the real treasure. You have tobecome aware that knowledge is a false coin--it is notknowing, it is not understanding. At the most it isintellectual--the word has been understood but thesense lost.Sri Ramakrishnaye NamahVivekananda Centre Londonhttp://www.btinternet.com/~vivekananda/