"…And relationship is not substantial. If one relater is not there the relationship just disappears. If the known is not there, then there is no knowledge. How can you have any knowledge if the known is not there? If you are in a vacuum and nothing is to be known, how can knowledge exist there? Only this much knowledge can exist: that there is a vacuum, because the vacuum is there. And even if there is no vacuum, not even a vacuum, this much knowledge also will not exist there. Knowledge just disappears; it is a relation.

"So when we say that brahma – the supreme consciousness, the innermost consciousness, the eternal one – is knowledge, we are using a word with a very different meaning. Not only different – rather, a very contrary meaning, just the contrary.

"Brahma is knowledge without the known and the knower – simply knowledge, simply knowing, simply consciousness. Why is this unrelated phenomenon to be insisted upon so much? There are reasons: if knowledge is dependent on the known, it is a slavery; it is not a freedom. And knowledge must be a freedom, only then it is knowledge.

"Ignorance is a bondage; knowledge must be absolute freedom. If knowledge itself is a bondage, then what is the difference between ignorance and knowledge? Ignorance is always related: you are ignorant OF something, you are not simply ignorant. You are ignorant of something – then you are knowledgeable; then you are the knower of something. Both are the same in a way, because both are related to the object; both are dependent on the object. Ignorance and knowledge – so-called ignorance and so-called knowledge – both are dependent. So what is the difference? The dependence remains the same.

"And the search for truth, the search for the secret of secrets, the real knowledge, is the search for total independence. It is the search for absolute freedom. So even the presence of the known is a limitation; the presence of the knower is a limitation. These two limitations must be broken. "