Knowing is different from knowledge. It is internal.

Knowledge can be acquired from reading, taking a class, or practical lessons at work. It is external. Knowing, on the other hand, is a certainty that comes from experience, contemplation, and reflection.

Knowledge is factual while knowing is experiential. Knowledge has utility in this world. It makes you more efficient, skillful, and resourceful, which may lead you to earn more. Knowing, meanwhile, is more elemental and innate. It’s like the way a flower knows how to open, a fish knows how to swim, a child in the mother’s womb knows how to grow, and you know how to breathe.

This is a totally different kind of intrinsic intelligence. But unlike Knowledge, Knowing is not acquired; it is natural.

Osho, the Indian mystic, describes how one can go on thinking and accumulating information, but also how pieces of information are nothing more than “paper boats” that will not help in an ocean voyage. If you remain on the shore and only discuss your voyage in theory, these paper boats seem like real boats.

But if you go on the voyage with paper boats, you will indeed drown. Only when you transcend the mind do you become “original.” However, to be “original” and present, you need to stop clinging to Knowledge.

Life’s outlook is transformed when you cooperate with the forces of life rather than oppose them. Knowing is about trusting life and accepting our existence, as is, now!