Knower & Known (Re: neti yoga )

[CharlesBalducci]

Dear Nanda:

Referring to your inquiry:

> > example like many of this
> > list I too initially thought that according to
> > Advaita the “knower” is the
> > Atman – but such an understanding is negated for a
> > higher understanding in
> > the Upadesha Saahasri.
>
>Would you please clarify on this. What is negated and
>what is proven to be the 'knower'. Would you please
>give me reference to particular verses of upadEsa
>SAhasrI which talk about the 'knower'.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 

Response:

Who is the knower? What is known? 
It is a matter of point-of-view.
Therefore, what is referred to as knowledge, is a
matter of identity.

From the seat of the Absolute:

Discover your true identity. Enter the heart of
universal being - the root of enlightenment and
undivided happiness. When the authority of your
awareness exists unbound in the Supreme Self alone,
there is nothing to understand and no one to understand
it. There is simply the spontaneous flow of ecstatic
wonder - the immutable knowledge of undivided love.
Resplendent in soverign majesty, this Self is the same
Self in all.  

Here knowledge is referred to as Self knowledge, not
consciousness condensed into phenomenological shards
that serve as a reflection of the Absolute.  Here
knower and known together disappear into the absorption
of pure, undivided conscioiusness. Discrimation is
absent, perception is absent. One focuses upon
no-thing. Here the Self, as witness is not an object.
Rather, the witness is the spontaneous flow of pure
awareness. For the witness, knowledge is immutable,
undivided and Absolute.

Inquire into that Self who is witness to this play of
consciousness.  

From the seat of the Observer:
 
In contrast, when the seer, as the observer considers
that it is the body-mind, it has created itself as a
'Doer', an object. When I say object, included are all
of the states of the object as well. If there is an I,
then there is a you. The one Self has become estranged
into I and other. 

For example, I am rich or I am poor; I am victor or I
am victim; or I am smart or I am stupid; I am happy or
I am sad. The Supreme Self exists beyond.

These are all states of an observer that imply its
opposite. 
Therefore, in the creation of I and other, the observer
has promoted separation from the universal, homogeneous
and undivided flow of pure existence-consciousness.
What was once unbound and impersonal is now limited by
image and form in the personal. The knowledge referred
to from this point-of-view is consequently grounded in
the impermanent phenominological world. 

Indeed, the observer as wave has has distinguished its
impermanent presence from the ocean of eternity. From
this point-of-view, the whole of worldly attributes and
perceptions can be negated. Who remains, nobody. What
remains,nothing. For the observer, like the wave,
everything is relative to its own point-of-view.

This emptyness, this nothingness is not nehilism. What
remains has always been present as the unknown,
infinite potentiality. Absent of body, absent of mind
together with ego, the indestructable Self within is
spontaneously present everywhere as pure consciousness.
The power of pure awareness. The source of all
knowledge. 

Pure knowledge, like the ocean can not be grasped by
the fisherman's net. Containing all, yet uncontainable.
It is at best only a few shards of its luminous wisdom
that can ever be pressed into words or moulded into
images - serving to point the way of traveler, to the
unfathomable mystery within, revealing the depths of
the unknown in the firmament of pure awareness. 



Yours truly,
Charles Balducci
 

 

Charles Balducci     
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