What Do We Mean by Knowing? - 9th November 2017

What do you mean by knowing? You can have a concept that the Sun is so many miles away from Earth. You could have a concept that there are so many trillion stars in the sky. Just a bunch of... nobody's counted the trillionth star. It's a concept from another credible source. We'll come tomorrow with the next great scientist, and we can have a new concept. So, in this way, I am sharing all this because a lot of us feel like we're spiritual because we have a lot of spiritual concepts. This is not knowing; this is concept. There is concept that we can have, okay, whatever reason you might have for having that. So, this is one: conceptual. You don't have a direct taste of it.

The second is perception, that which our senses are bringing. See, if you ask, it is seeing some light. Like scientists question our perceptual emotion, this changing emotion. So, what is that which is prior? Which is prior to all of this? To your existence? Which of these two do you use? Do you mean a concept 'I exist' to exist? Or to know that you see a visual of this existence? Did you hear this? Is it a motion you felt? So, what is it that knows? What kind of knowing is done with my existence? And most of us think this is of this existence, but knowing that there is a knowing of whatever it might be—knowing existence, knowing knowing itself—this knowing, this 'knowingness' which we usually call awareness, is not about knowing a subject or object. Which is that?

So, we cannot really rely on all this, on the other type of knowing we cannot really rely on. There is no fruit which is the unchanging truth about this. What about this awareness that knows existence? No concept is needed. That's why I asked you the question: Are you aware now? Did you have to refer to a concept, perception, or emotion to come to the 'yes'?