Any knowledge that you have stored in your mind is certainly of the past, it cannot be of the present. The rishi says, “That ultimate truth or reality or supreme consciousness which you search for is here and now in the present; it cannot be labelled, put in your memory and recalled because it is not a thing of yesterday, of the past.”
It is ever new and living now. Therefore, no knowledge that you have acquired can help you to understand the ultimate which is ‘now’ and not a memory, the present. It is a sweeping statement, which means no knowledge can lead you to that truth, except perhaps the knowledge that no knowledge can lead you to it.
Now, the third aspect of knowledge is, most people who are involved in collecting knowledge, you’ll see, are always acquiring more and more knowledge. There is no end to it, tons of books have been written but they continue to be written, which means there is no end to knowledge; which means, knowledge can never become complete; which means knowledge can never become unlimited. It is limited and incomplete which is why people constantly try to acquire more and more knowledge. There is no end to it.
Therefore, that which we seek as the ultimate truth, according to the Upanishads, cannot be found in the limited kind of knowledge because ultimate truth is complete and the knowledge whichever or however much you have is incomplete, always. Therefore, the rishi says, if you understand this carefully, deeply, consciously, then perhaps you will reach the state where your mind is at rest. For, seeing the futility of acquiring knowledge in this particular field of consciousness, the mind has become silent.
It’s not reaching out, it’s not going from here to there, it’s not hoping to become something later. It’s just looking at itself as it is–which is the atman, which is the true self; and, therefore, it stops all movement. All chattering, all movement has stopped, the mind has become absolutely still. The Upanishad says it is in that absolute stillness that the true reality is understood. And, that is the supreme reality that pervades everything here; which the Upanishads call as Brahman, the supreme being, the supreme consciousness, which is true happiness.
True freedom comes about, therefore, when the mind is absolutely at rest, at peace with itself and the world. Not acquiring, not in conflict, not reaching out, not stretching itself but remaining in its own place in its original completeness and calmness. This state is called moksha or freedom.
In that state called moksha or freedom, the human being’s mind and, even the physical body, undergoes a certain change. The cells change, the psyche changes, everything changes, and the man or woman becomes a completely new individual, resting in the freedom, an innate freedom that’s called moksha.