Isha Upanishad - Super school - Auroville - Isha Upanishad 1006

I'm saying, that if you have all this, whatever you need to know, once somebody wrote a letter to Sri Aurobindo saying how much mother knows? What the President of America spoke to his wife at the time of breakfast, can mother know? Sri Aurobindo said, ‘Yes, if She wants to know, She can immediately know’. Mother’s capacity of knowledge is integral knowledge. Once Mother were standing at what is called the sports ground of the ashram and there was a question of building a swimming pool. Question was where to find water? Engineers were discussing and my friend Udar, who was also very big engineer, he had a very beautiful idea and he said: ‘Why not to ask the Mother. So we asked the Mother, ‘Mother, tell us, we not know, anywhere in the whole ground there is no water according to us. Please tell us where is the water? So Mother said exactly where I'm standing, below that there is water. They dug up and there was water. It is said that Mother was shown the chart where exactly ‘Matrimandir, has to be, the centre of Auroville. Mother had just put her finger here, and even physically it is true, it is the centre and there are many consequences of it. This is practical knowledge.

There is no knowledge that is the denied to that consciousness, for example you bring a substance, you don’t know the nature of that substance, but if it is brought to that state of consciousness, something will happen and the substance will reveal itself. Like a beautiful experience with the Mother in Japan, She was concentrating upon the cherry tree and when she concentrated upon it, Mother said that the cherry tree just said to her: ‘I’m the cure of all diseases of the summer’. This is how the practical knowledge is revealed. If you have to pass an examination and you have all this, you will know all the questions that'll come in advance. Actually Mother gives an example that when they were playing cards, She would know the cards, She would know the cards of everybody, so it is so easy to play the cards. As a result if anybody comes to meet you, you will know his motive and he will tell you himself what he is, in one way or the other. You may have a very high opinion of him, he will do one gesture to show how mean he is, he may be very high in many ways. A small example, a Minister of Education came to meet the Mother and I was standing out and he had gone inside the chamber of the Mother. Udar my friend was with the Minister. Mother was seated, he goes there and says: Oh! What a beautiful view of the sea. He revealed himself, he was in front of the Mother and he is occupied with the sea. So human beings reveal themselves. Actually this is happening all the time, only we are not aware. Every human being is self revealing actually. Every little thing in the world is self revealing, only we do not know how to observe and where to observe, it's just before you. As a result you can do the right action spontaneously there is no need to find out whether this is right or wrong, this choice that choice, all the dilemmas of human consciousness in which we are caught all the time they are dissolved. All the actions will be spontaneously are the right action. Every time you smile at the right time, you will frown at the right time, you will look in the right way, you relate yourself in the right way the kind of delicacy required in relationships, the kind of firmness that required in relationships, the way in which you speak, the length of your speech, automatically will be the right proportion, the right measure. What you call perfection of your life, perfection of your being will be manifest. So you have the practical knowledge, not the practical ignorance, practical ignorance will be cured.

All this is a kind of a panoramic view of what is ignorance and what is knowledge. Now the question comes which he asked how this has come about. I think tomorrow we shall deal with it, keep that question ripe because then we shall understand these two or three verses that we are dealing with. If you follow ignorance you enter into darkness, if you follow knowledge alone you enter into greater darkness but really speaking it is not so. Really speaking, you must follow ignorance, crossover death and by gaining knowledge you will attain to immortality. These three verses, real understanding will come now after seeing how this ignorance arises, whether true knowledge is not abolished, knowledge is always there but we are all ignorant. How does this happen, why does it happen these are the important questions.

In the history of philosophy these two questions have been answered fully only by Sri Aurobindo that is why I always recommend people to read The life Divine. Nobody has answered these two very important questions, which are centrally related to the human fulfilment. We shall read tomorrow.