What is real knowledge?

True knowledge is the ability to distinguish the spiritual from the material.

The academic knowledge acquired in the universities touches only dense matter, and can in no way be accepted as being the real knowledge, especially since it ends with death. Indeed, the current material education remains incomplete, because it throws no light on the spiritual, the soul and the existential truth. It stops at the material elements and the needs of the body.

Spiritual knowledge is superior to material knowledge, because it is eternal, and disseminates exclusive data relating to God, and absolute truth.

The Lord says: The humble sage, enlightened by pure knowledge, sees with an equal eye the noble and erudite spiritual master, the cow, the elephant, or even the dog and the dog eater.

The holy man establishes segregation neither between castes, nor between races, nor between living species, celestial beings, human beings, animals and plants. From a social perspective, the wise may differ from the untouchable (the lowest category of man, due to his karma), just as, from the species perspective, the dog, the cow and the elephant differ, but these bodily distinctions are of no importance to the spiritualist established in true knowledge, knowing that Lord Krishna, God, the Supreme Person in his Primordial, Original, Infinite and Absolute form, is present in the hearts of all beings in his Supreme Soul form, his plenary emanation, he sees each of them in relation to the Absolute.

The Lord is also kind to all beings, for He always treats them as a friend, regardless of their body shape. He remains, however, as Supreme Soul, independent of the conditions that overwhelm individual beings distinct from his Person. Although the carnal envelopes of the wise scholar and the untouchable differ, the Lord dwells in each of them in the form of the Supreme Soul.

These material envelopes, produced by the interaction of the three attributes and modes of influence of material nature: virtue, passion and ignorance, take various forms. But the distinct soul and the Supreme Soul, both present in each body, participate in the same nature, spiritual, conscious, happy and eternal. The distinct soul (which each of us actually is) is only present in a particular body, and aware only of that body, while the Oversoul is present in all bodies and aware of each of them.

Whoever is aware of Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, has a knowledge that allows him to realize the magnitude of these truths. As a true scholar, he sees all living beings with an equal eye, and grants gold, pebbles and clods of earth the same value.

This is real knowledge.