THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF UNDERSTANDING

Weekly Knowledge #175 Montreal Ashram 14 Oct 1998 Canada

There are three kinds of understanding: intellectual understanding, experiential understanding and existential realization. Intellectual understanding says yes, agrees. Experiential understanding feels, is obvious. Existential realization is irrefutable. It becomes your very nature. All you hear will simply remain a jumble of words if there is no experiential understanding, which is more on the feeling level. You can know intellectually you are hollow and empty but sitting and feeling you are hollow and empty is totally different. When one gets an experience, one wants to understand more about it and becomes a seeker. If you have only intellectual understanding, you will think you know it all. Most theologians are in this category. Existential realization contains within it both experiential and intellectual understanding. But it is beyond both of these. Question : How do we get there? Sri Sri : There is no way. When the fruit becomes ripe, it falls. Question : What is doubt? Sri Sri : It is one part of the mind challenging the other part of the mind.

Bonus Knowledge Flash: Although "there is no way," Guruji nonetheless gave some interesting clues about "the way" in a spontaneous discourse this week on the eight limbs of yoga. Following a noon - time meditation, in which some practitioners must have been busy "doing" or otherwise impatient for the final " Jai Guru Dev " Sri Sri said: "You have to rejoice in the means. You have to love the means. Love is the goal; the means must also be lovable. Love springs when there is no effort, when all activities are shunned." More on this in the next Knowledge sheet. Sri Sri theoretically is on vacation this week at the Montreal Ashram. To the untrained eye, however, his so-called vacation appears no different from his usual hectic schedule. Streams of visitors flow through his kutir all day long, and invariably come out beaming. How this happens continues to be the greatest mystery. Guruji is visiting Halifax and surprised the devotees of Halifax. Halifax is far from Montreal and many devotees were unable to come to the ashram to see him. Guruji continually confirms in so many ways that he is indeed the embodiment of love and compassion.