Trying to drop the ego?

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

Question (Q): Dropping the knowledge, is it dropping the method, or is it completely dropping the knowledge?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Dropping the feeling that I already know what is best for me. Would you call knowledge as knowledge, if you are not sure of it? Would you call yourself knowledgeable if you are not sure of something? So, knowledge essentially assumes certainty. I am certain of something. In other words, I deserve to be certain. I am capable of certainty. To drop knowledge is to actually drop the confidence that you can know. That being yourself, you are capable of certainty.

That’s what is meant by dropping knowledge. Dropping out knowledge does not mean wiping out memory or information from your brain. It merely means gaining some humility to admit that you really do not know the most fundamental entity which is yourself and all knowledge is held by you.

If you do not know yourself then the knowledge that you hold, is bound to be quite unreliable, isn’t it?

When you say, “Knowledge”, what you mean is that you have the knowledge, right? So, what comes even before knowledge? I. All belong to? You. Therefore, when you express confidence in knowledge, first of all, you are expressing confidence in yourself. To drop knowledge is to drop the certainty that you have towards yourself. When you say, “I know”, implicit in this is the assertion that “I can know.” When you say, “I know”, before that you have said, “I can know”. Now being yourself, can you really know? Being who you are, prone to biased, prejudice, can you really know?

Therefore, bing yourself you cannot know? Then how did you assert that you know? It was a false assertion, right? That is what is meant by unloading knowledge. It’s not as if the one who unloads knowledge, has no knowledge. He has knowledge rather, he has no himself. When you say, “I have knowledge” and you want to drop this statement. What is it that you drop in this? It is “I” that you drop, not really the knowledge. Knowledge will be there. Knowledge merely as memory and information. That will remain. And actually, there is no way to wipe that out. If there is memory in the brain, it will remain for a while. And then in the normal…