Hi Rupert,
I wanted to understand this quote from Shri Atmananda:
‘The object of knowledge is always in knowledge and knowledge is not affected by the thing known. So there is knowledge and knowledge alone, without reference to the thing known. This is the ultimate Truth or Atma, your real nature.’
Thanks for your help in interpreting in advance.
Love,
Ankit
Dear Ankit,
The apparent objects of the mind, body and world are known. In fact, our only knowledge of a world is the perceptionof the world. That is, we know our perceptionof the world rather than the world itself.
However, perception is not divided into one part (a separate, inside self) that perceives and another part (the separate, outside object, other or world) that is perceived. There is just perceiving,in which both the apparent subject and object are contained as one.
Perceiving and the knowing of perceiving are the same experience. Therefore, all there is in the experience of the world is perceiving, knowing or experiencing. They are synonymous. Perceiving, knowing or experiencing is what Atmananda refers to as ‘knowledge’. It is all that is ever known.
Perceiving, knowing or experiencing is intimately one with yourself. In fact, it is not ‘one with’. There are not two things there, in the experience of perceiving, knowing or experiencing, to be ‘one with’ each other. There is justperceiving, knowing or experiencing. It is seamless, without parts, objects or selves, and intimate.
If we go to the substance of perceiving, knowing or experiencing we find only awareness; that is, it finds only itself. That awareness is what we are. It is the only substance found in all experience. There is nothing outside of that, no ‘thing’ other than itself that actually exists.
All we know is knowledge or knowing, and knowing is made of awareness alone. Or we could say that all that is known is ‘experiencing’ and the only substance present in experiencing is our self, awareness.
That awareness pervades experience intimately and, as such, is known as love; it is unaffected by changing names and forms, just as the screen is unaffected by the images that appear on it, although it is their sole substance, and is therefore known as freedom.
Above all, it is our self. If we stand as that, if we stand as pure, seamless intimate, expereincing or knowing, we find no resistance or seeking there. Experiencing never resists itself or seeks to replace itself. That is happiness. That is peace. That is our self.
Live as that.
With love,
Rupert
