There are two kinds of knowing, inner knowing and outer knowing. This may sound elementary, but it’s actually very profound. Outer knowing is when there is a felt distance between the knower and that which is known, you could say a spacial relationship so that it takes time to know such a thing. Time is involved.
Inner knowing has a qualitatively different taste to it. Inner knowing is when that distance between the knower and the object is not felt any longer. That inner knowing gives birth to the feeling that you are now seeing seeing. You’re beginning to see the seer. In other words what’s recognized in that inner style of knowing is that there is no actual process of knowing, that knowing leaps into a different dimension, a different reality.
It’s that latter kind of knowing that gives birth to enlightenment-based realizations, the unique knowledge of non-duality, where the Self itself begins to become the object of knowledge. The Self begins to know itself in a very tender and direct way. And that essentially forms a shift in the entire experience of Being, of knowing who you are, getting beyond the personality, beyond the ego structure, beyond the sensory apparatus and apprehend the actual condition of presence which is now beyond knowing.
Until you begin to grasp this form of knowledge it’s going to be not a full revelation happening about your own process. It’s going to feel snagged or caught somewhere. You’re going to feel like you’re missing the target even if your knowledge is good, even if you have studied assiduously, deeply, with great discrimination, even great love. In spite of all that you’ll feel like something is not coming together, which is perfectly natural that you feel such a thing. We don’t want to attack that feeling of unnaturalness. We want to be led on by it so that within our own process we begin to work within our discomfort. You work within our limitations.
We start to use the energy of conflict itself and lack of full understanding to turn into the presence, to turn into the present, not postulating some kind of pure condition that, “Well, when I get there, then I can take the leap.” You cannot measure it in that way. You can’t measure yourself out in that kind of predictability. So, you begin to have a radical kind of owning of your own experience as a result of seeing all of that. You start to understand that wherever you are is valuable because you’re as close as you can get at any given moment. You’re already as close as you can get. In other words, your process is underway whether or not it’s fulfilled.
So, you begin to become quite generous with yourself with regards to where you are. You stop wanting to be somewhere else, and you really start looking nicely, not with the kind of precision that we see that, the technical arts or activities geared toward measurement. We start to get a deeper feeling of the movement of simplicity in which Consciousness or Being becomes the direct movement of the mind. Instead of visualizing Being as always being beyond the mind, you might come to this very radical kind of seeing in which even the movement of the mind now is itself just a form of Being.
So, you no longer separate yourself out between being the thinker and the be-er, the one who thinks and thinks all sorts of things, and the one who’s simply free from conflict. So, this is what I would like to invite you into, this conflict-free approach in which thinking itself is permitted. Your own Being is permitted. I want you to feel comfortable in that. I want you to get a big thrill of comfort, of quiet comfort, that none of us here are searching. It’s not that David is beyond seeking and he’s going to teach you. No, we’re all going to honor this kind of simplicity just by virtue of hearing it. That comfort, ease begins to teach you. The mind itself is responsive to that comfort and so it begins to settle into it and therefore melt, without seeking to go beyond anything.
There may be a real sense when you first come in here that there exists a part of you that is disturbed, that is not in sync with this kind of understanding, and that too is totally natural. But, if you give yourself over to understanding and don’t leave the process of understanding at any moment there will be a seamless shift from conflict to this disarmed state of simple innocence where Being begins to activate from within itself, begins to churn or move from within itself to shake a little bit so that the foundation of the mind can then become recognizable in it.
If you become aware of this other aspect, the Being aspect, not as separate from thinking but within thinking, then just begin to open your heart into that. Even the phrase “open your heart into that” is deceptive, but it’s the best we can do. Your own thinking and that precognitive corridor through which thinking flows, in which thinking flows is the golden pathway into this conflict-free condition. So, we’re not looking for anything other than what is revealed directly in Consciousness in the Self to the Self. We’re looking for non-dualistic knowledge and understanding and experience. All of those words, those three words cover that taste—knowledge, understanding, and experience, and feeling too. You can’t separate these things in this beautifully dissolved condition.
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