Am I This Knowingness, Knowing Itself? - 15th August 2016
Saar (Essence)
Ananta guides the seeker to recognize that knowingness is the attributeless substratum of I, which never forgets itself. He distinguishes between the unchanging awareness and the dynamic 'being' where peace and joy arise as byproducts.
Knowingness is untouched by the appearance of grief or suffering; it remains ever-present and attributeless.
Can you find a place where you are but this knowing is not? There is no distance.
We look for the Self as an object, but it is the simpler, non-phenomenal subject of all experience.
intimate
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
Actually, uh, I was seeing one of, uh, Rupert's videos, yes. So here, there he was also, uh, talking about this knowing of knowing. So, uh, what happened, uh, so the questioner asked that how can we know this? How can we—what are the qualities of this knowing? He said that, "I will give a very bad example, that is only peace and contentment." It's not the clear example, that is the only closest he can go. So, so is that it?
I don't want to say that, although I love Rupert also, there's no dichotomy there. But I wouldn't say that because this knowingness, you see, this awareness—to put an attribute to this, I, I would say that as my being comes to a place of un-association with any conditioning, there is bound to be love, peace, joy, contentment, all these things, you see. But this that knows even the presence and absence of being, even the waking state and the sleep state, you see, this I would not attach any attribute to. You can say like that, no harm in it, but usually I would not say that this, which is attributeless, you see, because it's untouched with the appearance of grief or suffering or sorrow. This knowingness remains untouched, you see.
And this knowing of knowingness is not new, you see. Okay, it's going to get a little bit subtle here. It is not that knowingness forgot itself, you see, and therefore when knowingness now remembers itself some peace and contentment should come. I would not agree to that because knowingness is always knowing itself. There's been no break in that. It is in its dynamic form, which is as being, as Consciousness, it has been playing, pretending to be this non-existent presumed person. And when being is coming to the recognition of its own source, you see, then peace and contentment come. But in all of this, knowingness has always known itself. How can knowingness not know itself? Knowingness is knowingness. How do I see these things, you see? So it cannot be that knowing knowing itself has some energetic byproducts.
I would more say that being coming to the recognition of its source—which in effect means that being is also made up of knowing itself, see—but being has the power of belief. Being has the power of pretending to be a person and the power to recognize where it comes from. And it is the un-association of this being with personal attributes and moving to this Universal being which then leads to these byproducts of love, peace, joy, devotion. Okay, let's look at it this way: is it possible for you to forget what knowing means? This knowing is direct knowing. It's not possible. So how can knowing forget itself? Just there is knowing, that is all. And there's a knowing of this, you see. There is a knowing that there is knowing, which is knowing knowing itself. And this knowingness never went away anywhere. It has always been this way.
I think the main, my trouble is that this knowing is me, that this knowing is you. Yeah, that is not established.
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Okay, so let's look at it the other way. If it is not you, then who is it? How does this knowing connect to you? Because you are able to report on knowing and you also feel like it's not you. So there must be a way for this knowing to connect to you so that you are reporting on it. Can you find such a mechanism? Can you find a place where you are but this knowing is not, or the knowing is but you are not? Can you find some separation?
There's a knowing of me.
Yeah, there is a knowing of me. What do you mean by me? This body identity? What is more intimate for you: this knowing or this body identity? Does this knowing come and go, or does this body identity come and go?
I've never experienced absence of this body though.
Uh, what about sleep? Last night, did you sleep? You know, for that the mind comes and says about it is past and all that. We have done it. Maybe not to your mind, what is your experience? You, if I ask you what time you woke up, you'll be able to give me a time, isn't it? So there was something which shifted and is aware of the shift. Don't be so nice to your mind. The mind comes and says—let it say what it wants. You stay with your experience. So this knowingness, at what distance is it from you?
No distance.
No distance. So that which has no distance and has no separation from 'I' must be 'I', isn't it? You don't have to force this concept. Look for that which could be 'I' besides this. Besides this knowingness, which 'I' could you be? You say that the body identification is there, but you say there is a knowing of this body identification. Therefore, this knowingness must be greater, must be prior, you see. It must be perceived, this body identification. This knowingness is not perceived, you see. It is just known by itself.
All of us must be able to ask this question: how do I know of this knowingness? How am I aware of this awareness? The only trouble is that we are used to phenomenal discoveries. We are used to seeing things and saying, "Eureka, there it is!" or "This is it!" you see. This what you're finding is not—does not have any phenomenal attributes. There's nothing where the mind can justify it and say, "Yes, you saw it." It is deeper, more primal than that. It is simpler than that. So we've been looking for the Self which is an object, but that itself cannot be, isn't it? Because if the Self was an entity, then what would be the subject of that?
The simple awareness, the simple knowingness, is the substratum. Everything is made up of this. For it is not even an experience, you see. For it is impossible to forget, impossible to remember, because it is not an object of memory. It cannot be taught, cannot be learned, cannot become less or more, cannot come and go, cannot separate from 'I' because 'I' is that. I am that. Everything else is coming and going within this, but this awareness, this knowingness, does not come and go. Okay, see? Simpler than simple. Even to say "I know nothing" needs this knowing, you see.
The Thread Continues
These satsangs touch the same silence.
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