16 February 2015 - QA 3

Dear Gurudev, when you come before me, then all the highest knowledge like that mentioned in the Ashtavakra Gita, Upanishads, Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, etc., all falls apart. Dispassion crashes into pieces and I become clueless. Why does this happen to me?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Good, you are lucky! (Laughter) People long for that to happen. Knowledge is like a detergent, it is there to purify you. After applying it, you must also wash it off. You do not say, 'I have bought an expensive soap which I have applied to my skin and I am not going to wash it off'. You do not keep expensive toothpaste in your mouth the whole time. Right?
So, the purpose of knowledge is to get rid of ignorance. It is like detergent. You have to wash it off too. Then you become hollow and empty. Then you become Nirankaar – it means you become lighter. Otherwise the burden of knowledge can bog you down.
With knowledge you become more simple and natural. The purpose of knowledge is not to make you arrogant, but to make you more humble. It is to make you lighter, instead of thinking 'I know it all'.
The purpose of knowledge is to lead you from a frustrated 'I don’t know', to a simple and innocent 'I don’t know'. It is to take you from an ugly 'I don’t know', to a beautiful 'I don’t know'.