Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
29th March 2017
Understand
“Enquire”
A new-born child merely lives and is happy in every moment of life. It is obvious that a new-born child is happy as it lives, because a child smiles most of the time in the day.
Everyone understands that a new-born child smiles most of the day, whereas a grown-up child or an adult does not smile as many times as a new-born child does in a day and some adults hardly smile in a day.
While living life a new-born child has no interest to understand or to enquire why and how to be happy. The new-born child is happy by itself as it is. It is only a grown-up child and an adult who try to understand and enquire or have an interest to understand and to enquire as to why and how to live life and why and how to be happy.
You need to enquire in order to understand. This is what a man or a woman understands. But what man or woman needs to understand is that primitive man or woman understood without enquiry.
This implies that both understanding and enquiry have evolved in a primitive man or woman and continue to do so in modern man or woman. The enquiry as it evolves leads to knowledge and when deep enquiry evolves to enquire knowledge more deeply, it leads to wisdom. The consequences of knowledge and wisdom, however, are different.
For example: When someone talks and you understand what has been spoken, meaning knowledge, you may or may not agree. If you agree all is well, but if you disagree arguments may or may not ensue.
But when you deeply enquire to understand the knowledge that anyone speaks, which is wisdom, you neither agree nor disagree nor even argue. You merely understand the person as he or she is, because you would understand that anyone speaks the knowledge that has evolved in him or her. It can neither be other than what the knowledge is, nor can the person make the knowledge other than it is.
If deep enquiry happens, man or woman will understand that thoughts are not present in every moment of life and that thoughts, when they are present, are only an illusion of sound in the moments when they are present.
This indicates that when deep enquiry has not happened to man or woman, he or she understands that thoughts are real, which makes them either happy or unhappy. This implies that a new-born child is always happy, because the new-born child has no thoughts in any moment.
When deep enquiry happens to an adult, he or she will understand that the thoughts in any moment are illusory and not real. That mind is the same as the mind of a new-born child, which is without any thoughts, but is always happy. He or she becomes wise and is always contented in every moment of life.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2017
Editor’s Note:
Enquiry, deep enquiry, does not arouse argumentation or disagreement. Knowledge, when spoken or written, may or may not be understood. It may be the case that when words that are spoken are first heard and that when words that are written are first read, the thought ‘I cannot understand a word’ is the response, albeit illusory. On further enquiry a depth of understanding may miraculously reveal itself where there is no personality, no striving and no thought. Such is the gift of the words of the wise, such is the gift of this article. There is inexpressible gratitude for this gift.
Julian Capper, U.K
German Translator’s Note:
As part of evolution of life, enquiry happens to the reader whether knowledge that has evolved in him or her is real or illusory. This article “Understand“ by Dr. Shankar is also not separate from life, so it is life that makes man or woman understand. What a deep insight into life as it is presented here in this article!
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.