Certainty

[Prashant Sharma]

----------
> From: Allan Curry <acurry at UVIC.CA>
> To: ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU
> Subject: Certainty
> Date: Thursday, November 06, 1997 1:06 PM
>
> Namaskar
>
> Prashant writes:
>
> >This certainty "burns" away all the doubts that one has.  Also it cannot
> >be conveyed since it is not an idea. This certainty cannot even tell you
> >that there is a "self" or an "atman" or any such abstraction. Its
> >my personal feeling that such abstractions are expressions of doubt and
> >therefore pervade the world of the "unrealized".
>
>     This reminds me of Zen being able to dispense with Zen
>     and still be Zen precisely for that reason. What you say
>     about "this certainty" being unable to tell you there is
>     a self or atman really appeals to me because I am
>     absolutely certain of X but absolutely uncertain as to
>     what X is. If there is no need to complete the equation
>     X = ? then I'm done. I am X without the slightest shadow
>     of a doubt. Is that all there is to it?
>

        Yes, there is nothing to know about X. However, the statement that there
is nothing to know about X is an abstraction for me, because I know. There
is no not-knowing but knowing projecting the state of freeing oneself from
the known.  So infact this very demand to be free from the known is the one
that is creating the problem. Which is of course why the renunciation of
renunciation is so important (and yet it can't be practiced: "whomsoever it
chooses, to him it is revealed").

Regards,
Prashant.

> regards,
>
> - Allan Curry