INTELLECTUAL KNOWLEDGE IS NOT SELF-KNOWLEDGE

SAGE:

Sorrow ceases, all the bondages are rent asunder and doubts are dispelled when one is fully established in the equanimity of the Self for a long time, when the perception of division has ceased and when there is the experience of fullness through the knowledge of that which is to be knwon.

What is to be known? It is the Self which is pure and which is of the nature of pure consciousness which is omnipresent and eternal.

INQUIRER:

I know that the Self alone is real and the body, etc are not real. But how is that it is not perfectly clear to me?

SAGE:

Such intellectual knowledge is not knowledge!

Unattachment to wife, son and house, equanimity in pleasure and pain, love of solitude, being firmly established in self-knowledge - this is knowledge, all else is ignorance!

Only when the ego-sense is thinned out does this self-knowledge arise.

INQUIRER:

Since this ego-sense is firmly established in this body, how can it be uprooted?

SAGE:

By self-effort and by resolutely turning away from the pursuit of pleasure, and by resolute breaking down of the prison-house of shame (false dignity), etc.

If you abandon all this and remain firm, the ego-sense will vanish and you will realize that you are the supreme being.

(Concise Yoga Vasistha pg 331 to 332 - ISBN: 087395954X)