Nagesh Sonde
BHAGWAT GITA REMEMBRANCER
By: Nagesh D. Sonde
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Knowledge is what one knows, a temporary accumulation of information sourced from external sources which becomes more and more deep and wide over a period of time. Wisdom is what one experiences, remembered and recollected as awareness sourced from within as some thing which existed as eternal consciousness. Knowledge is possible to be communicated and transferred; Wisdom being personal has to be experienced. Knowledge sourced from scriptures which does not lead to Wisdom, awareness as some thing remembered and recollected, is worthless the words spoken or the paper on which it is written.
When I was born, I did have neither Knowledge of the social norms or cultural ethos, religious beliefs of the life around me nor aware of the Wisdom how I was formed, why I was formed and where I was heading, of the social norms or cultural ethos, religious beliefs of the life around me. In the family in which I was born, reading books and be knowledgeable, which generally was more by way of accumulation information that becoming wise in wisdom. I was initiated in reading books by my mother, who used to read religious scriptures in regional languages, which were recital of ancient mythical legends which were less factual as historical events though given as true and fashioned to attract the attention for mass adoration and an outer worship as against historical narratives, which though real and some what factual were nevertheless anything but collection of individual perception and opinions. Whatever I heard what was spoken I accepted them and repeated as a parrot would repeat what it was chattering.
Each one’s self is said to be potentially divine possessing Wisdom, which is awareness of what was experienced some times or the other but now long forgotten, due to the layers of accumulation of information sourced through sensory instruments. I was endowed with a remarkable faculty, the brain and attributes and inclinations with which I can distinguish between the proper (श्रेय) and the pleasant (प्रेय). Therefore, by the time I entered adolescence, I realized that what is spoken, heard or read as words was Knowledge, I realized that behind these fables and legends lay a vast storehouse of Wisdom, the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true language of the Gods, clothed in images, words and language which had, a spiritual sense as Sri Aurobindo pointed out.
Therefore will to learn dawned in me, realizing that Wisdom, the awareness of the unknown Satya, the Prime Existence is not be accessed with accumulation of Knowledge. I realized that it is not sufficient if one accumulates more and more Knowledge if he does not experience Wisdom as uninterrupted, continuous conscious awareness for one to take leap to the regions which are strange and unknown and perchance to have glimpse of the extra-ordinary region beyond any imagination.
No one can supplant other person’s Wisdom as one’s own experience or one’s Wisdom as some one else’s experience. Wisdom has now to be remembered and recollected and given the
opportunity make it shine with divine luminosity. Wisdom which one has or become aware of or may have experienced is sourced from within, which I can speak but not communicate and share with others. The experiences will remain my own and will never be of others. Therefore whatever words I have written here are words sourced from Knowledge, which I have gathered from external sources, which having found resonance in me, I desire to communicate and share with others.
Therefore from adolescence my interest shifted to the spiritual books. I have been student of Bhagavad Gita for more than forty years. During the study I realized that many of the thoughts expressed therein or the views expressed by commentators, without lessening the importance of the words contained in the scripture or spoken by the commentaries, found echo in my consciousness, as some thing already passed my mind some times earlier. Therefore, what I had heard and read or would hear or read thenceforward can be instruments to experience though not the experience of the Wisdom.. सत्य, the Prime Existence is One, experienced as One, though spoken variously. It is not sufficient if one knows many things about Krishna or read his message to the world from scriptures if one does not experience the divine essence within his gross form or behind his message then reading scriptures, whether Vedas, Upanishads or Bhagavad Gita would of no use – all being mere repetition of words – "नानुध्यायादबहुछब्दान्, वाचो विग्लापनं हि तत |"
