Understanding something is such a tricky phenomenon. We think that when we have studied something, read a book about it, or by listening to someone speak about it, we have understood it. Getting information about something and storing it in our memory is not understanding it.
For example, you can read books on love, or listen to someone talk about love but that does not mean that you have understood love. Love just happens. It cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. It is impossible to use your intellect to understand it.
Understanding cannot happen via thinking. When you are thinking, you are using all the information that’s stored in your memory. Understanding cannot come from the old. If you have already understood something, there is no need for you to think about it. Understanding has already happened. What’s the use of thinking? We only think because we have not understood.
Suppose you are sitting in a room and now you want to leave the room. You just get up, look for the exit door and you walk towards it. There’s no thinking involved. It might be that you are new and the room is big and you are not able to see the exit door. Then you have to think about how to find the door. But once you see the door, all thinking stops. You just understand.
All understanding happens as a flash of insight. It comes from the beyond. It is a completely personal phenomenon. The person who has understood might not be able to explain or express it because an understanding does not come in the form of words or images. It is like a breeze flowing through the trees. If you are present, you can feel it and enjoy it. No two people can enjoy the breeze in the same way. Their experience is different because they are different. That’s why no two people can understand something in the same way. Understanding is such an internal phenomenon that any words used to express it will fall short.
We are obsessed with gathering more and more knowledge about something and we have forgotten that only understanding can help us. Only an insight can help us transform. Knowledge is a head thing. Understanding is a heart thing. Knowledge is aggressive. You have to grab it. You have to hold onto it. Understanding just happens. When your thinking settles and the clouds covering your eyes start disappearing, you get a clear look and understanding happens.
Just take a look at your own life. Whatever thinking you have about it is all done using outdated data. Your life is constantly in motion, its always moving, never the same. No two moments are the same. All our misery is caused by this small misunderstanding. We think and think and think. We are constantly using the old to handle the new. Its like we have access to fresh drinking water from an infinite stream of pure water and we are drinking water that was bottled by us ages ago.
None of our thinking is original because there are no original thoughts. Just notice. Where are the thoughts that you are having in your head coming from? Where do they go after you are done thinking them? They do not belong to you. It can only come from the outside. Whatever is stored by your mind in your memory is all made up of thoughts that are not even yours. They have just floated into your head and you have decided to hold onto them.
If you had to describe yourself, you will have to depend on other people’s opinions about you that you have decided to keep with you. Any words you use to describe yourself has come from the outside. It has been given to you by others. Even the meaning you ascribe to the word is given to you by others.
Thinking is the process of chewing and rechewing the junk you have stored in your memory and then creating new junk. This is not really going to be new. It is just going to be a version of the old. Something truly new can only come when thinking settles.
Try to notice this happening with you in your day to day life. Any time you were stuck in a dilemma or were facing a brand new challenge and you had no idea how to resolve it. You try to think and think and think but nothing happens. Your eyes get cloudier and cloudier. You get more and more stressed because the decision or solution is just not clear. And then it happens. You get a flash. The clouds clear for a second and the sun shines through. You get an insight. A fresh thought. A thought that has a completely different quality. It is a knowing. You just know what to do next. You understand the problem a little better. You get a higher perspective. Your consciousness expands, the solution arises by dissolving the challenge. The problem no longer exists. Its like darkness. It’s just absence of light. The moment light comes in, darkness stops existing. An insight is like an inner light that dissolves the challenge.