"The direct knowledge dissolves the distinction
between knower and known; it is an experience of absolute
Unity, in which the knower is aware of everything as
himself.
The consciousness by which we experience knowledge
is the screen on which we project thought. Therefore, no
amount of thought, of whatever quality, which is projected
on that inner screen will reveal or portray the Self to you.
For the Self is the screen, the very Consciousness, on which
the thoughts are projected. This is why it has so often been
emphasized by the knowers of the Self that no amount of
thought can reveal Him. He is the Thinker. He is the
Source of that consciousness which you experience as you.
And it is in His power to reveal Himself, when He so wishes
it, and not otherwise.
Listen to what the sages of the Upanishads had to say:
He is known by those who know Him
beyond thought.
... If you think, “I know Him well,” you do
not know the Truth. You only perceive that
appearance of Brahman produced by the inner
senses. Continue to meditate.
What cannot be thought with the mind,
Beyond Learned Ignorance 165
but That whereby the mind thinks: know that
alone to be Brahman.
... It is not what is thought that we should
wish to know; we should know the thinker. “He
is my Self”: this one should know. “He is my
Self”: this one should know
There is a Knowledge beyond knowledge, won only by
the brave, who soar on wings of love, beyond the knowing
mind. The penetrating laser-light of intellect is able to
comprehend the spoken truth—but it cannot know the
source of its own light. It can form myriads of concepts
about the knower, but it cannot turn its light on itself and
thereby know the knower.
To know that knowing Self, we must set out blindly,
without words, without images; even that shining intellect
which is our pride and joy must be left behind. With no
borrowed or reflected light, with no idea-projecting faculty
to cast images on the cave-wall of the conscious mind, we
must enter naked, empty-handed, and alone into that dark
light.
Without intellect, without a preconceived identity or
even existence; unknowing, unseeing, guided only by a faith
Beyond Learned Ignorance
in Truth and the longing of a pure heart, we may enter into
the silence of that all-knowing Light. There, no questions
rise to separate the knower from the known. There, the
Knower is alone—with a Knowledge beyond knowledge, won
only by the brave, who soar on wings of love, beyond the
knowing mind.
First, we must ask ourselves what is this Self on which
we are going to meditate? The answer to this question,
which we find in the Upanishads, is, “The Self is the Witness
of the mind. ...It is not the thought, but the Thinker one
must know. It is not what is seen that should be known, but
it is the Seer which must be known.” This, of course, is why
the Self is so hard to get a handle on; we are used to tackling
the task of “knowing” by focusing on the object to be known,
but, in this case, it is the knowing Subject, which we are
attempting to know. It is the Ground, the very
Consciousness that is the background of knowing, the
Screen, as it were, on which the thought-images appear.
To make matters even more difficult, this Self has no
qualities, no characteristics whatsoever by which one is
enabled to describe It. It is as empty and as uncharacterizable
as the vastness of the sky. It is the Source of
everything that exists, but It is, Itself, nothing—void. It is
called by the Vedantists: “Sat-chit-ananda.” It does not
exist; It is Existence (Sat). It is not conscious; It is
Consciousness (Chit), unstained, unwavering, eternal. It is
perfect, unchallenged Freedom, since It alone is; and for
that reason, It does not feel bliss; It is Bliss (Ananda). We,
who are manifestations of that Satchidananda, are not
different from It. Our body, our physical existence, is That;
we can experience our oneness with the universal Energy.
We can know It as Consciousness—the very consciousness
that is our self-awareness, the silent Witness of all our
various states of mind. When we come to realize that we are
That, that we are none other than the one, undivided
Reality, then we experience the infinite, carefree Freedom
that is devoid of any obstacle, or any other. then we
experience the Bliss.
Another way of understanding the Self is by
examining the physical, the mental, and the spiritual
aspects of our own reality. We possess a body, we
experience a mind, and we are spirit—i.e., the Self. And we
identify sometimes with one aspect of our being, and at
other times with another aspect of our being. This is clearly
illustrated in a story, which appears in the famous Indian
epic, called the Ramayana. In it, a character, Rama, who
represents the eternal Self, has a monkey-servant, named
Hanuman, who represents the mind or intellect. At one
point, Rama asks Hanuman, “How do you regard me?” And
Hanuman replies, “When I regard myself as the body, I’m
your servant; when I regard myself as a soul, I’m a part of
you; but when I regard myself as the universal Self, then I
am one with you.”
Now, a great truth is pointed out in this saying of
Hanuman’s: namely that our relationship to God, and our
spiritual practice as well, is entirely dependent upon how we
regard ourselves, upon what we believe ourselves to be.
Because there are these different ways of thinking of
oneself, there are also differences in the way one might
approach God, the eternal Self. Notice that, in the first two
ways in which Hanuman identifies himself, there is a
separation between the subject and the object of reverence.
Whether identifying himself with the body or the soul,
Hanuman regards himself as having a separate identity
from Rama. In the one case, he relates to Rama as a
servant, and in the second, he relates to Rama as a part to a
whole. but in the third case, there is no separation, no
relationship; Hanuman sees himself as not different from
The Self is pure Consciousness, absolute Awareness;
does it make sense then for one who wishes to experience
this awareness to give it a name and call out to it? This is
like painting the words, “blank wall,” on a wall in order to
reveal the blankness of the wall; or like using black paint to
color a house white. The active thought-producing mind is
exactly that which stands in the way of your awareness of
the Self. To use it to produce even more thought-forms is
not the way to become aware of the Self. It is like flashing
more and more words on a screen instructing you to look
only at the screen until the screen cannot be seen at all.
How, then, does one meditate in the non-dual path,
the path of jnan? In this path, the awareness is not focused
on some other, such as God, or some Divine form or mental
image, but rather on one’s own being. It is an in turning of
the awareness, so that it is focused upon itself. That is the
state of a mind in meditation on its Self. The Shaivite
scripture, Vijnana Bhairava, says, “Meditation is not
concentrating on a form. True meditation consists of
uninterrupted awareness, without any image or support"-Swamy Abhayananda.
