Knowledge and Wealth

Knowledge and Wealth

Today is Sunday May 7, 2006. As usual, I scanned the news over the internet. I was fascinated by the review on a new book "Wisdom for the New Millennium" by His Holiness, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. In this book, the saint-author describes four pillars of knowledge and six types of wealth.

The final chapter discusses the four pillars. The first is 'Viveka'. Though 'grossly translated as discrimination' this is more: it is "the understanding or observation that everything is changing." Changes, not only the prices of shares that keep ticking on the screen, but also in your thoughts and emotions. For instance, "You cannot maintain the same degree of sadness every day all the time... You can never be unhappy for the same reason continuously." How does it help to know that everything changes? "The moment you see that things are changing, simultaneously you start seeing that the one who is observing the change is not changing." The reference point of change is non-change, explains Shankarji.

The second pillar is vairagya, dispassion. Which is not the same as apathy, or being unenthusiastic, depressed, or not being interested in anything. "Dispassion is a lack of feverishness," be it in what you desire, hope or aspire for.

Then comes the third pillar, which includes the six wealths: shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha and samadhana. The first wealth, shama, means tranquility of the mind. "When the mind wants to do too many things, it gets completely scattered." With shama, you can focus your mind and be more alert, counsels Shankarji.

Dama is about having a say over your senses; essential, because many times you don't want to do something, yet you do! With dama, your senses don't drag you; instead, "you will say 'yes' or 'no' to the senses."

The third wealth, titiksha is 'endurance or forbearance.' When difficult things come, forbearance allows you to go on without getting completely shaken and shattered, guides Shankarji. Opposites such as health-sickness, losses-gains... come and go; armed with titiksha, however, you aren't deterred by whatever happens. "Often, whatever is unpleasant can become pleasant later on. These are the changes that go on in life... The ability to not get carried away by the events, the judgments, is titiksha."

The fourth wealth, uparati, means rejoicing in your own nature. How? By not doing things because someone else says or does something, by not labouring hard to win approval, or keeping up with the Joneses. "Being in the present moment, being in the joy that you are, the ability to rejoice in anything that you do, that is uparati."

Faith or shraddha is the fifth wealth. "Faith is needed when you have found the limit of your knowing... Your willingness to know the unknown is shraddha." It would be fanaticism to think there is nothing beyond. Absence of faith is doubt -- in yourself, others, or the whole. "Ninety nine per cent of people doubt the whole, because they do not believe that there is a whole that is functioning."

The sixth wealth, samadhana, is being at ease, being content. "Being at ease with everything, the whole existence... a great wealth by itself."

These six wealths together form the third pillar, he says, before moving on to the fourth pillar, mumukshatva -- "the desire for the highest, a desire for total freedom, for enlightenment."