The elimination of false knowledge

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: What is ‘elimination of false knowledge’ that Ramana Maharishi talks of when he says, “The individual is miserable because he confounds the mind and the body with the Self. This confusion is due to wrong knowledge. Elimination of wrong knowledge is alone needed. Such elimination results in Realization.”

So the question is — what is the knowledge that should be eliminated?

Acharya Prashant: All knowledge that we have, comes from the world. The world gives us knowledge in various forms, ways, structures, fields. But whatever be the structure of the knowledge that is provided to us by the world, there is one underlying theme always common in all knowledge coming to us from the world through our senses.

What is that common theme?

The common theme is, “Knowledge can be had only from the world and the knowledge is possible only about the world. All objects of knowledge are present in the world.” So, the world keeps on asserting that the world and knowledge are one.

It does keep the possibility open that one may not keep complete knowledge about the world, yet it maintains the strong identity that all knowledge is always about the world.