October 13, 2023
In one of the yoga camps there was a girl who was born deaf and dumb. She was given a hearing aid and discovered she could hear our words. She wrote: "I hear what you are saying but I cannot understand the words.”
This unveils truth. To hear everything is associated with a visible symbol — sign language or written word — but we are conditioned differently. One day our mother pointed and said "tree". Later on the teacher confirmed this by writing the word "tree". That is the ultimate extent of our "knowledge" — even today the tree remains an unknown something. In fact nothing in this world in which we live, is really known to us.
We discover the truth only if we have the courage to say, "I can hear but I cannot understand". We hear but we do not understand the truth; we think yet we do not understand the truth. The moment we see or hear, the audiovisual association — the dreadful curtain that veils the truth — presents itself to us and we console ourselves that we “know". If we can say, "I see the form but I do not know what it is", then we shall see the truth “in all these names and forms" in the words my Master Swami Sivananda.