To bring about this realization, the first thing that one must learn in every little thing in life is the way of unlearning. In my own work I find it very difficult when a person comes to me and says, "Now I have learned so far; will you add more to my knowledge?" In my heart I say, "The more you have learned, the harder it is for me; and if I wanted to add to it, it would not be adding; it would be taking away from what you have, in order that I may unburden you from all you have learned. You must be able to unlearn first, for through this unlearning will come the true learning."

"But," one might say, "is it then quite useless for us to learn what we learn in life?" And the answer is no, it is all useful; but for what? For the object for which one has learned it. But not everything is learned on account of the object for which one is searching. When one is searching for the secret of life, the first thing to unlearn is that which one calls learning. No doubt this is something which is difficult for everyone to understand. And yet when we read the lives of Rumi and his teacher, Shams-i-Tabriz, the first lesson the latter gave to Rumi was to unlearn all that he had learned.

Is this unlearning forgetting all that one learns? Not at all. This unlearning means to be able to say with reason, logically, the contrary to what one has learnt. When one is accustomed to say: this is wrong, that is right; this is good and that is bad; this is great and that is small; this is higher and that is lower; this is spiritual and that is material; this is up and that is down, and this is before and that is after; if one can use the opposite words for each with reason and logic, one has unlearned naturally that which one had once learned. It is after this that the realization of truth begins; for then the mind is not fixed any more. And it is then that one becomes alive, for then one's soul has been born. It is then that one will become tolerant, and it is then that one will forgive; for one will understand both one's friend and one's foe. Then one never has only one point of view; one has all points of view. Is it not dangerous, one might ask, to have all points of view? wouldn't that make one lose one's own point of view? Not necessarily; one may occupy one room in the house or ten rooms; one may use each as one likes according to how many points of view one can see, so large is one's point of view.

All this is attained by the meditative process, by tuning oneself, by bringing oneself into a proper rhythm; by concentration, contemplation, meditation, and realization; by both dying and living at the same time. In order to rise above death one must first die. In order to rise above mortality one must know what it is. But this is certain, that the greatest and most important thing that one can wish to accomplish in life, is one and only one: to rise above the conception of death.