Knowledge-Management

The first topic in Bhaja Govindam is Knowledge Management.

This is extremely important to all of us because we live in the Knowledge era. Information of all sorts is constantly flowing from all sides. Whatsapp, Facebook, Skype, Google, People, Media - its crazy amount of information!! Daily Newspapers today are sometimes spread to almost 30 pages!!! News on TV is now 24 hours!! Can you imagine how much knowledge of all sorts is coming into our systems on a daily basis... 😓😓

So it becomes important we all learn the art of Knowledge Management. 

Few implications of what Bhaja Govindam speaks on this topic:

1) Don't allow information overload. The greatest epidemic in today's world is Intellectual Indigestion. We know a lot, but there is so much information stuffed in the head, there is no space left for processing that knowledge. No time to think it over. Some people "like" every post of everybody on their facebook page!! Can you imagine? Nobody pauses to think - Do i need to know this?

Is this important to me?

Does it really make sense?? Dangerous! 

We need to practice quality control. We are so careful about our physical diet - making sure we eat healthy hygienic food. Its high time we become careful about our intellectual diet now! 

Every piece of information n inspiration need not find its way to my brain. 

2) Not knowing is Alright! We r strange people. We don't know our true Self - and that's ok with us. But if i don't know anything happening around us, it makes us restless. We always want to know. Inquisitiveness is a powerful tool when directed inwards, and it is also a dangerous weapon when directed outwards. Why is it important that i know everything? Sometimes it is not even relevant to me!! Which heroine wore what colour dress in which party - is the kind of information we are sometimes busy "knowing"!!! Important it is to learn to be ok with not knowing. Most of the things we really want to know are immaterial. 

3) Objective Knowledge doesnt determine who I am. Many times, we equate our worth to what i know objectively. So a PhD is more respected than an undergraduate. Or if a person knows all the shlokas of geeta, he considers himself superior to those who dont know any chanting. Or when we "know" someone important at close quarters, we feel more powerful than others. These are all wrong notions. My worth is not determined by any of this knowing. Unless i know who i am truly, i have no claims to any other credit or power or worthiness. When i know who i am, these things stop mattering.

4) Knowing needs to translate into Being. Even all the spiritual knowledge we learn often remains mere information. Gurudev used to call it "intellectual gymnastics". We makes copious notes, ask intrusive questions, have vehement discussions, but live our same old lives!! Such spiritual knowledge is not spiritual knowledge at all. At the end, what is going to matter most is not how much i know, but what i do with what i know. LIVE spirituality.

5) Lastly, VALUE knowledge - We love doing and we even value only that knowledge that makes me do more n more. But we need to know that doing is not going to free me from sorrow, anxiety, stress. Right knowledge is important. Systematic understanding needs to be valued. Many times we wonder "Whats the use of reading scriptures when people are dying hungry?" Knowledge empowers the society. Not wealth. We cant feed the poor forever. We need to teach them to live independently. For this right knowledge is important. Crime, corruption, communalism - it is all a result of ignorance. Knowledge is the only way to transform characters n empower societies. We need to learn to value Knowledge as a society. Knowledge is where growth begins! 

Practice : On a daily basis, choose one principle which i know but dont do... and make urself DO IT. 

Quote: 

Knowing is not doing. Doing alone is doing. 

- Gurudev