The idea that "I must gain a lot of knowledge" is no different in essence to the idea that "I must gain a lot of wealth" or "I must gain a lot of fame". All of them are ego based activities, which strengthen the ego - the idea that "I am something which must achieve something".

Instead I think, the key to real freedom is to realise instead that fundamentally, "I am nothing and there is nothing which I must achieve". If knowledge naturally comes to us, if wealth naturally flows to us, if fame naturally flows to us, then that is as it is but in the active pursuit of such things, we contort ourselves and become something which is .. not who we are.

Taking it further, if we feel that we must do something to "achieve salvation", then that is similarily an ego based activity. If we contort ourselves into something which we are not, in order to create a spesific outcome for ourselves we have in a sense missed the mark.

Salvation is the natural state of things, I think. It is a given. But in feeling that it is not, we do all sorts of crazy things in order to achieve it such as waging wars in the name of God. Such as playing missionaries, spreading our flawed understanding of God. Living in fear, rather than in love.

The ego will die. This body. These memories. The knowledge I have, the wealth I gather, the fame I accrue. When I die I can take none of it with me. All of it as smoke in the wind. There one moment, gone the next. In chasing ever more, there's an inherent feeling that I am not enough, I am not complete. This feeling is a source of discontentment and therefore suffering.

Who I am, continues. It is unchanging and eternal. It will simply go on, to dream another dream.

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love." - Meister Eckhart