Not to be a scholar means one is no more interested in the trivial: one is interested only in the real, in the ultimately real. One is not interested in theories any more: one is interested only in existential experiencing.
“Why are you wasting your time?” the Master said to the disciple. “Who are you to teach these people? They may be ignorant, they may not know as much as you know, but they did not mean any offense to you. They were thinking that to call somebody a great scholar is to pay respect. Look at their intention. Their intention was good. They are innocent people. Now you are confusing them. You are not helping them to become more clear. Now you will create a fear in them; now they will be afraid even to use the word ’scholar’. And they will be at a loss as to how to respect somebody.
“And you don’t have that accomplishment, because not to be a scholar is the highest kind of consciousness.”
The first stage is ignorance, the second stage is knowledge, but both are similar in one way. The first state is unconscious ignorance, and the second stage is unconscious knowledge. And the third state is conscious ignorance. The first comes back, but with a new form. The sage again becomes a child, the circle is complete — but in a totally different way. CONSCIOUSLY a child again — this is rebirth.
Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not be able to enter into the kingdom of God. This is rebirth: Unless you become a child again, unless you become ignorant again, with absolute consciousness that there is no way to know, that there is nothing to know, that there is nobody to know… so all three points of knowledge simply disappear into oblivion, and then the suchness of existence opens up. There is great ecstasy and great benediction.
Yes, love is there and dance is there and celebration is there, but there is no knowledge. That is a great accomplishment. And for that one needs detachment from the petty.
“Why are you bothering about these people and what they have said? Why are you so much interested in words? And can’t you see your conceit? — that by trying to teach them that scholars are the cause of misery, you are trying in a subtle way to pronounce, to propound, that you are not a scholar — AND YOU ARE A SCHOLAR, because whatsoever you are saying is not your own experience. You have heard me say it and now you are, parrot like, repeating it. You must have been searching for these people; these people are victims.”
Whenever you have some information, you start searching for somebody in whose mind you can pour it; otherwise, it creates a restlessness. Unobserved, you go on searching for somebody unaware. Whenever you have some information, it is very difficult to keep it inside yourself. That’s why it is so difficult to keep a secret, almost impossible. It becomes heavy. One wants to say it to be unburdened.
It is very difficult to contain something that you have come to understand and not to say it to others. People search, they move around, they wait for some victim.
“SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE,” SAID THE MASTER, “BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS…”