We Don't Know Anything

We’re all living in our own worlds. Definitely with all the illusions we have created for ourselves. Our own dramas. And all the while, seeking love, inclusion, and trying to find freedom through actions and situations. We know we are caged. Sometimes in family. Sometimes in society. Sometimes within ourselves. And yet, we remain clueless about how to break free. In this journey of seeking and searching, there is also us—when we are completely alone. When no one is watching us or hearing us. When we are simply with ourselves. Not watching anything, reading anything, scrolling through our phones, or doing anything in particular.

Just sitting with ourselves. What do you think we feel then? Does the mind stay quiet? Never. We try to understand ourselves. We question everything around us. At least it is that way for me. I question what is real and what is not. What is the truth? Who am I, really? At least, is that real? Physically, yes, because I can feel it. But what about beyond my physicality? My life. My experiences. My family. My work. My social circle. Cities. States. Countries. Wars. Planets. Galaxies. This entire existence...

What is it that I am seeing and not seeing? Perceiving and not able to perceive? One of the questions that keeps coming back to me is this: Who is this person standing in front of me right now? And why is it that when they speak, so many emotions are triggered within me? What are these emotions? How did we name them? So many people come and go, leaving so many prints on my mind and heart. Sometimes happy. Sometimes sad. Sometimes loved.

The bliss I experience when I sit in silence with myself. Eyes closed. Watching my breath. Watching the way it moves within me. It is very addictive too... I don't understand people at all. Like... none of them. Even my mother. After all these years and the closeness we share, the closer I get to her, the more I realise that I don't know anything about her at all.

I thought when someone said something, I understood. I understood their emotions. Their situation. At least, a little bit—from my own shoes. But now I know...I don't understand anything at all. Sometimes I feel there is nothing called understanding. The more I try to “understand,” the more foolish I feel for believing that I know. When I don't know a damn thing about life! It feels almost stupid to say, “I know.” Even in conversations, the moment I say it, another thought immediately appears in my head: You fool.

We can explore. We can seek. We can try to know, only to discover that we don't know anything at all. But trying to understand something feels, at times, like our intelligence backfiring on us. Manipulating us into believing that what we don't know, we now somehow know. But in reality...Again, we know nothing. I feel it is the same with people. When someone comes to us and talks—expressing themselves—we think we are listening. But are we truly listening?

Sometimes, I feel that what we understand in that moment may only be two or three percent of what they are actually trying to communicate. And not just that—sometimes even they don't know what they are trying to communicate. So everything becomes one big misunderstanding. For them. For us. Where, then, is the truth? The more I dwell on these questions, the quieter my mind becomes. Because there is no longer this constant need to analyse, dissect, and understand everything. Because I know clearly that I don't know for sure. If thinking about this makes me feel intellectual, as if I am decoding something, it means I am becoming more stupid everyday. So I would rather stay quiet.

But I don't want it to happen through the mind. Not through analysis. Not through theories. I want a deeper way. Something beyond us. Beyond my mind and body. And perhaps, when we don't assume that we understand, there is no judgement either. All of it simply begins to vanish from the mind.

Before, when I looked at clouds, I would immediately start creating images. “Oh, this looks like an elephant's trunk.” “This looks like a fish.” “This looks like a face.” And maybe all this while, I was only seeing those images instead of seeing the cloud itself. Now, when I look up, I just see the clouds. And wonder, "What are these?" My eyes, my mind, and all my attention simply trying to see the cloud as it is. And somehow, that has changed a lot within me in ways I cannot describe.

I still don't know what it is. So I keep looking at it. Forever. It's all crazy, right? It gets even crazier when you really sit with yourself and begin asking these questions about everything you see, hear, and smell. Just question.. not analysing or trying to understand it intellectually. But just question and wonder! Are we talking and understanding from our memory? Or are we responding to what is truly there? Maybe we spend our entire lives looking at the world through what we already know.

Naming things, Comparing them, Understanding them. Judging them. And perhaps, sometimes, the most honest thing we can say is simply: I don't know. And then...Maybe for the first time,