To Angiras came upon a time Sounaka, the famous householder, and asked respectfully: “Holy sir, what is that by which all else is known?” (Mundaka Upanishad 1:1:3)
We have already been told that the knowledge of Brahman, Brahmavidya, is the foundation of all knowledge. But Sounaka has a very salutary impatience and ambition. He wants to know what is the one thing which, being known, causes all to be known. This is both a wise quest and a wise attitude. Little Red Riding Hood ended up in the wolf’s stomach because she dawdled on the way instead of going straight to her destination. If we look at the history of religions we will find that the countries which produce the most enlightened persons are those countries which have produced empires. For when such people turn to spiritual life they go after the loftiest spiritual attainments–they become imperialists of the spirit! They seek out the most direct way…and go there. Sounaka is one of them–and hopefully so are we. Knowledge is the subject of the question, so Angiras lays a foundation for his answer.
“Those who know Brahman,” replied Angiras, “say that there are two kinds of knowledge, the higher and the lower.
“The lower is knowledge of the Vedas (the Rik, the Sama, the Yajur, and the Atharva), and also of phonetics, ceremonials, grammar, etymology, metre, and astronomy.
The higher is knowledge of that by which one knows the changeless reality.” (Mundaka Upanishad 1:1:4-5)
A personal story
Now we should look at this very carefully. First of all, who do we believe? When I first emerged from the deadly cocoon of fundamentalist Protestantism my intellectual world was quite simple–simplistic, actually. Fortunately I first read the Bhagavad Gita and then Autobiography of a Yogi. The next step was to get out of my deadly environment, so within a few months I was on the plane to California and wider horizons.
But I discovered in a short time that wider horizons can have a drawback. I began encountering just about every shade of philosophical and religious thought and attitude, most of them incompatible with each other. Almost daily I was told conflicting things, and always with the utmost confidence. As someone once said: “The problem with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.” I loved being in the wide-open mental spaces of California (and I still do), but which way should I go? Who could–or should–I trust?
Since I had been shaken out of my spiritual entombment by learning of the yoga tradition I wisely followed the principle that only those who know God really know anything. So I sought out the teachings of illumined yogis of past and present, discarding those inauspicious Indian teachers who claimed to have a new revelation for a new age, and only paying attention to those who were right in the center of the Eternal Dharma. (Once somebody asked me what a great yogi’s “distinctive teachings” were. “None!” I replied with satisfaction. “If he taught anything ‘new” I would have nothing to do with him. Truth is eternal.”) I appreciated it if the English was good (and equally if the book was free from typos), and expressed in a way that someone in the twentieth century like myself could comprehend, but I wanted to know what all the great yogis throughout history knew: the tried and proven way to God.
My great blessing was being able to trek many times to the Vedanta Bookshop in Hollywood. There I found an abundance of eternal wisdom, the same wisdom that had been flowing in a life-giving stream for countless ages–like the holy Ganga. The Ganga that emerges at Gangotri high in the Himalayas is the same Ganga that flows into the ocean at Gangasagar. In the same way I found on the shelves of that little shop the same Sanatana Dharma spoken by the primeval sages of India. A little further east in Hollywood at the Self-Realization Fellowship I listened every Sunday to an ideal presentation of both the philosophy and spiritual practice of Eternal India. All this prepared me for India where, as a friend of ours once said about the same pilgrimage, “I got the idea.” And have treasured it ever since.
The most prized knowledge
So those who know Brahman “say that there are two kinds of knowledge, the higher and the lower.” The lower, they say, is the knowledge of scriptures, ritual, philosophic, expression and suchlike–including, by the way, astrology. Please note that they do not denounce these things as useless or as ignorance. They are definitely said to be knowledge, and a sensible person appreciates and learns them to a reasonable and practical degree. But it must be understood that the essential, “the higher is knowledge of that by which one knows the changeless reality”–Brahman. The knowledge which enables us to Know is to be sought for and prized above all else. While writing this previous sentence I could clearly hear in memory the recorded voice of Yogananda saying: “I walked my feet off from Cape Cormorin to the Himalayas” in search of the knowledge that would reveal God to him.
The lesser knowledge tells us only of that which changes, including our own short physical life. But the higher knowledge brings us to the Changeless Reality. “By this is fully revealed to the wise that which transcends the senses, which is uncaused, which is indefinable, which has neither eyes nor ears, neither hands nor feet, which is all-pervading, subtler than the subtlest–the everlasting, the source of all.” (Mundaka Upanishad 1:1:6) The Absolute Consciousness, the Totality of Being, is shown to the wise–to the yogis–by this knowledge.
Read more about the higher knowledge by exploring our sections on:
Subscribe via RSS to the Atma Jyoti Blog 
What Is RSS?