Knowledge is one. The sources of knowledge can be many. The types of knowledge can be many. But knowing is one.
I may know Punjabi, I may know Japanese, Spanish, Tamil, Sanskrit or Hindi. Or I may not know any of these languages. In knowing and not knowing, the act of knowing is just one. The Amrita Bindu Upanishad brings out that this fact of the essence is one while the forms may be many. Cows may be of different colours—white, brown, black, grey, spotted, healthy, lean, well-built or with dismembered limbs. The milk that comes from all the cows is just one taste and white in colour. In the same way, the bodies may be different among plants, animals and humans. The act of knowing and experiencing through those bodies is one alone.
How is this oneness possible? We have heard many experiments of how plants and trees know and experience. They may not be able to express it the way we do, but the fact that they too experience which is now scientifically established. There was once a scientist who was researching on how plants feel and she loved her plants, garden and the herbarium. She had fixed equipment that monitor the minute expressions of plant life. Once she was out of her laboratory garden and a man just walked in to see her. Finding she was not there, he left. She came back to see all her monitors blinking with alarm signals. When she enquired who came and went, it was discovered that the man who came in was a pesticide dealer and the plants were agitated by his presence.
Ask any lover of pets—dogs, cats, snakes, scorpions or even cows and goats. They will have umpteen stories to tell how much they express their love for the owner. In human life, love is the content of all our films and we have a natural encyclopaedic knowledge on that subject.
It is that oneness in knowing the ability to know which is the essence of all life forms, despite the variety of life forms, says the Upanishad. How is it possible to experience that unity in our daily interactions? Adi Sankaracharyaji says in his Bhaja Govindam, “Don’t make efforts to separate or join friends, enemies, children or relatives. See the presence of existence in all. Eschew differences in your perception.”
The result of such a unified vision of oneness in all beings is immediate peace. Our peace is disturbed when there is duality. When my finger accidentally pokes my eye, I do not slap the finger or take sides with the hurt eye. I don’t get upset because both are parts of my own body and I experience it as one. While contrarily, when a neighbour’s finger accidentally pokes my eye, I may turn around with a glare and even seek an apology. The greatness of this knowledge is because it shows us the way to experience that oneness of existence in our day-to-day lives.
The seer is one. The knower is one. The knowing also is the same one and the object of knowledge also is one and the same. Knowing this truth and experiencing it brings the mind to an immediate state of peace and tranquility.
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