FREEDOM FROM THE KNOWN

A friend sent a message: “Can someone guide me to some place where I can get the summary of K’s famous book ‘Freedom from the Known’? Summary or articles or anything lucid, please. Also, any other worthwhile resource to learn deeply about K’s teachings and more about ‘Freedom from the Known’ and ‘Education and the Significance of Life.’ Many thanks.”

This ‘letter’ below is a response to my friend, an attempt to put something down in my own words and explore together.

‘Dear friend

I think what you have chosen to go into is probably the essence of K’s teachings. Indeed, it could well be the essence of any teaching. Freedom from the known. Important to understand what Krishna ji meant by the ‘known’. We normally refer to the ‘known’ as knowledge about things in any domain. Perhaps profession. Perhaps subject or field. This knowledge or skill is factual, functional and a necessity to live in this world. Nothing wrong with this.

So, what did Krishna ji mean when he said ‘Freedom from the known’? We all know that after a human being is born, he or she is gradually conditioned by the environment; the home, parents, school, religion, social norms and so on. You and I have been through this. We develop an identification (psychologically) with so many beliefs, behaviours, thoughts; so many ideas about what is good and what is bad; so many hurts. Indeed, all this can also be described as the content of what we can call ‘self’ or ‘ego’ (me) which then drives our living. This is our conditioning. This is all the recording of the past from which we think, from which we act.

So, Krishnaji’s reference to the known is in the above context. As long as we are ‘conditioned’, our thoughts, our actions, the way we live, all stem from that accumulation of the past. Not only is it limited, it appears to be the main reason why this beautiful earth is in conflict. Come to think of it, isn’t war the result of this factor of conditioning caused by beliefs, ideas, hurts and more? Isn’t war the extension of our own lives where self-centred activity is at the heart of our existence? Millions of ‘me’ entities with their own conditioning and heavily steeped in the past. All of us see different things, not ‘what is’!

As long as the human being does not understand deeply why conditioning is destructive, he or she will always be chained to the past. Bondage to the past prevents access to ‘pure’ observation, to seeing, to perception which alone uncovers the truth. We ourselves block that access. We are not able to see things as they are.

There is a quote of Krishna ji: ‘We are talking about something entirely different, not of self improvement, but of cessation of the self’. It is important to understand this. As long as we fail to see the self, ego for what it actually is, we will continue to nurture it. This quote that follows sums it all up quite nicely. ‘To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion’.

In conclusion, one can say that inner freedom and the inquiry into truth are the essence of Krishna ji’s teaching and must be lived in our daily living and all spheres, including education.

So, friend, I hope that this has helped us both explore together. 

Best wishes’