Sufficient knowledge has lead to me to a place of no knowledge.
Sufficient wisdom has made me a fool.
Enough vision, and I see the smallness of my nature;
enough abandon, and my heart’s fire compares with suns.
How to understand the being that is left
when my being is washed away?
If one sit in a library, surrounded by books,
should he consider them his knowledge?
At an instant he retrieves whatever learning you seek,
and can discourse in the lofty tongues of ancients!
Should we regard the halls of memory any different?
If one ask a question, we withdraw the relevant item,
and relay what was heard or thought another day.
If this is the hallmark of knowledge, whoever visits a library
should claim the rank of scholar!
Or do I see the lens of my eye as “mine”,
differently from a telescope? Both can be taken away.
Or the noble horse, who carries us great distances:
is he “we” when we ride upon him?
Yet we charge through life on a steed of bodily form,
and gaze at the world through fixed eyepieces of the skull,
And refer to mundane knowledge by humble requests
of our own, uncomprehended memory!
Bit by bit, as I understand the nature of my understanding,
and discover the borrowed qualities of my being –
I find that my understanding has made me ignorant,
which implies that to know means knowing by other means.
That is, to hear without ears, for I have none.
to see without eyes, for I am blind;
To know without knowledge, or memory,
to travel without moving – for where am I?
This is attaining without changing state:
for what is there to change?
What was something becomes nothing – becomes all.
If knowledge is but a symbol of knowing –
as the Beloved’s hair is proof of His raven Locks –
What lies beyond this borrowed self,
when we “see not even `neither first nor last’”?
Sufficient wisdom has made me a fool.
Enough vision, and I see the smallness of my nature;
enough abandon, and my heart’s fire compares with suns.
How to understand the being that is left
when my being is washed away?
If one sit in a library, surrounded by books,
should he consider them his knowledge?
At an instant he retrieves whatever learning you seek,
and can discourse in the lofty tongues of ancients!
Should we regard the halls of memory any different?
If one ask a question, we withdraw the relevant item,
and relay what was heard or thought another day.
If this is the hallmark of knowledge, whoever visits a library
should claim the rank of scholar!
Or do I see the lens of my eye as “mine”,
differently from a telescope? Both can be taken away.
Or the noble horse, who carries us great distances:
is he “we” when we ride upon him?
Yet we charge through life on a steed of bodily form,
and gaze at the world through fixed eyepieces of the skull,
And refer to mundane knowledge by humble requests
of our own, uncomprehended memory!
Bit by bit, as I understand the nature of my understanding,
and discover the borrowed qualities of my being –
I find that my understanding has made me ignorant,
which implies that to know means knowing by other means.
That is, to hear without ears, for I have none.
to see without eyes, for I am blind;
To know without knowledge, or memory,
to travel without moving – for where am I?
This is attaining without changing state:
for what is there to change?
What was something becomes nothing – becomes all.
If knowledge is but a symbol of knowing –
as the Beloved’s hair is proof of His raven Locks –
What lies beyond this borrowed self,
when we “see not even `neither first nor last’”?