“This goes against everything I’ve believed my whole life,” I protested again.

“It’s not surprising that you believe that way because you are accustomed to it. You see
everyone else doing it. If you don’t do it, you might be seen as a heretic, stubborn, a
rebel. I see this as a matter of tradition, and the origin of this tradition comes from the
desire to create order and rules to manage or control the freedom of the human mind.”

“Oh… I never thought that uniforms could make people unfree,” I remarked.

“This is a result that even those who do it are unaware of what they have done. What
they do, besides causing others to have less power within themselves by having people
respect and bow down to them—which affects both others by causing them to lose
power and affects themselves by believing they are better or higher, leading to division
and the creation of classes, or what you once called castes—this division creates fear
and reverence. And this fear itself is a major cause of ignorance, or not knowing one’s
own power and potential, not knowing who they are, not knowing that we all have the
same spiritual parent.”

“And the most important thing is that while they are causing others to have faith and
bow down to them, it will also diminish their own potential. They will lack the
opportunity to access pure wisdom because they have unintentionally created a
division from others. When people bow down in reverence, an ego arises, which is a
false power born from tradition, born from established rules created to prevent the
loss of power, causing them to lack the crucial factor in communicating with pure
universal knowledge because they have mental narrowness or a self. Even though they
may be known to have knowledge that can solve problems for others, it will not be the
pure wisdom that comes from the highest spirit. It is just limited wisdom, as I
explained the scope of knowledge earlier, and they themselves are the ones who
directly experience that result,” he added.

“Sir… I’m still a bit hesitant to believe what you’re saying. How can it be that the
teachings from those known as monks, virtuous individuals, or spiritual leaders are
limited wisdom, since most of the teachings come from prophets, don’t they?” I asked.

“What they say is not wrong. The knowledge they bring to teach is not wrong. But it is
wrong in the process of delivering that knowledge,” he said.

“Here we go again… the more you explain, the more confused I get,” I said.

“I will give you an example of this, relating it to your learning. If a math teacher teaches
students by only giving them the correct answer, for example, if a student asks what 12
times 12 is, and the teacher tells the student it is 144, even though the answer given is
correct, the most truthful answer, it is wrong because the teacher did not teach the
process that allows the student to know that answer for themselves. This type of
learning process will make that student powerless within themselves. And furthermore, making the student see the teacher as clever, as someone with wisdom
who can be a refuge for the student, will make the student even more powerless. So,
when the student has doubts about other knowledge, such as wondering what 12
times 13 or 12 times 14 is, they have to go back and ask this teacher again. What’s
worse is when they start recording knowledge for students to memorize, starting from
2 times 2, 2 times 4, and so on, for fear that knowledge will be lost or cannot be passed
on in the future, it will further reinforce the student’s lack of freedom. Your world’s
humans are doing this with ‘knowledge.’ Those who see the flaws in this learning
process often say that all the knowledge in the universe is still as vast as the leaves in
the forest, just as there are still infinite products of numbers. We don’t need to know or
memorize it all. We only need to know the principle of how to obtain that true
knowledge, just as we know the principle of multiplication: no matter what numbers
we multiply, we can know the result infinitely,” he explained.

“Are you implying that memorization cannot lead to the discovery of truth?” I asked.

“And what do you think? If someone asks you what 2 times 4 is, and you immediately
answer 8, do you think that answer came from a calculation process or from memory?If it came from memory, it shows that you didn’t calculate. If it didn’t go through a
calculation process, it shows that your intellect didn’t work at all. And if you don’t use
it often enough to become accustomed to it, you won’t believe that you can generate
knowledge. The result is that anything beyond what you already know, you won’t
believe you can know it yourself. You will go around seeking knowledge from the
knowledgeable, from books or scriptures. Try observing yourself and see which makes
you more certain and confident: knowledge from books or knowledge that you know
yourself, or in other words, knowledge from your own direct experience. Knowledge
from books might just let you know, but knowledge from experience will be knowledge
that illuminates you and you will never forget.”

“Hmm… that’s true,” I agreed.

“Alright, we’ve strayed from the topic enough. Can we continue?” he prompted.

“Oh… right, let’s go,” I quickly agreed.

“For the journey from now on, I will increase the speed more than usual because if we
were to travel at the normal pace, it would take many days to reach the second layer, as
this layer of magma or molten material is about 2,000 kilometers thick,” he proposed.

“Wow!… 2,000 kilometers?” I exclaimed.

As soon as I finished speaking, our bodies plunged into the bright red lava current
flowing fiercely from left to right. Before long, we stopped at a certain point. In front of
us was an emerald green color with iridescent hues, similar to a rainbow, while behind
us was the red lava flow.

“Where is this place?” I asked.

“We are now at the boundary between pure oxygen and the lava flow. This point is
about 2,000 kilometers deep from the Earth’s surface. From here, we must travel
another 4,000 kilometers to reach the Earth’s core,” he explained.

“Then why isn’t there any explosion like you mentioned earlier?” I asked, noticing that
it was calm and peaceful.

“There are two reasons why you see it this way. First, it is nighttime on this side, and all
living beings are asleep, so there is no reaction between positive energy and the oxygen
mass causing an explosion. And second, no positive energy is being sent down from the
Earth’s surface, even though it is daytime. This is because people are filled with hatred,
disgust, intense competition, and exploitation. People are consumed by negative
emotions, prejudice, irritation, sadness, suspicion, and worry. I think the second reason
is more likely because it is daytime on this side,” he explained.

“I think this calm and peaceful atmosphere looks good,” I commented, based on the
feeling I had at that moment.