Question::
What is inner knowledge or Divine knowledge or Gnosis? How come ‘clarity in life’ increases with such knowledge? How does ‘man’s consciousness’ gets affected by this knowledge?
(or)
Is ‘belief’, a sort of inner knowledge? How can one advance from the level of ‘the perception of belief/faith’ to a higher level of understanding that rests on “true knowledge”?
(or)
What happens when “experience” RIPENS?
(or)
Does devotional rituals of religion lead to ‘true inner knowledge’?
(or)
How does ‘concentration’ or ‘one-pointedness’ help attain Divine Knowledge?
Answer::
(Extracted from Meher Baba’s literature, which is a copyright of Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust(©AMBPPCT), Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, Bharat/India)
The ‘path of divine knowledge’ has both BEGINNING and END. In RARE CASES, a pilgrim may be very advanced due to efforts in previous incarnations. In such case, he may attain “divine knowledge” instantaneously as a gift bestowed upon him through the ‘grace of a master’. In MOST CASES though, the pilgrim has to travel the path by ‘stages’ attaining this knowledge gradually.
The ‘understanding of God’ which the average person attains through ‘belief’ or ‘reasoning’ is so far removed from ‘true understanding’ that it cannot be called ‘inner knowledge’.
Such ‘true knowledge’ (gnosis) does not consist in the construction or perception of an ‘ideology’.
It is the product of ripening experience that attains increasing degrees of clarity.
It consists in– ‘man’s consciousness’ becoming more real and participating increasingly in the truth, until there is nothing more to become and nothing more to assimilate.
The devotional rituals followed in religions do not lead the seeker to the true inner journey, for in greater part they are ‘mechanical observances’ barren of the redeeming experience of ‘divine love’. Nevertheless, regardless of how rudimentary these types of ‘belief’ and ‘devotional observances’ may be, they do contain in latent form, the future ‘inner knowledge’.
As the aspirant struggles through the obscuring fog of ‘mental’ and ’emotional’ tension, his “consciousness” becomes more ONE-POINTED forming a spearhead that eventually pierces through the curtain to the inner path of ‘divine knowledge’. Even, the early glimpses of this knowledge which the pilgrim gets, are a GREAT ADVANCE over ‘understanding that rests solely upon ‘faith’ or ‘reason’.
– Meher Baba
Source::
Listen Humanity, Pg::155
© AMBPPCT, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India/Bharat
