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"Action cannot remove ignorancefor they are not opposed.Self-Knowledge removes itas light removes darkness."(3)Ignorance means (1) not knowing that I am a complete, limitless,blissful being and (2) thinking of oneself as incomplete, limited, andinadequate. Ignorance causes me to chase objects or perform actions Ibelieve will complete me. Even spiritual activities won’t complete mebecause they are also motivated by ignorance.No matter what I do, I can’t get something I already have. One day aman asked God for a head on this shoulders. God thought about it and said,“In spite of the fact that I’m omnipotent I’m afraid you’ll have to ask forsomething else. I can give you another fatter head, an additional brainlesshead on top of the present one, or ten tiny pointed heads facing in differentdirections. But I’m afraid I can’t give what you already have.”Doing or non-doing won't wipe out ignorance because the Self is notan attainable object. Action, no matter how enthusiastic and wellintentioned,will not produce something one already has. Nothing can bedone because the "object" is you. Only knowledge will reveal it.SELF NOT KNOWN THROUGH (MOST) MEDIAThough the Self cannot be accurately described, It can be knownbecause It is us. Always present and accounted for, the Self is the mostintimate and essential component of every experience. However, we don’tknow It the way we know an idea, emotion, or sense object, aspects of outerreality known through media. Sounds, for example, require ears.Information, stimuli, pass through the ears, enter the hearing center in themind, and are interpreted by the mind according to past experience.Whatever knowledge we have is dependent on the means through which itcomes.But the Self cannot be objectified so it cannot be known throughmedia. Anyone can read scripture and claim Self knowledge but theirknowledge of the Self would be inferential, conditioned by how the intellect8
interpreted certain words. If the knowledge of the Self isn't mediate,intellectual knowledge what kind is it?EXPERIENCE VERSUS KNOWLEDGESome claim enlightenment can't be experienced, others that it can. Ifenlightenment is described as an experience, a transaction between subjectand object, it is a peculiar kind of experience. Ordinary experience is astraightforward interaction between a human being and the world. If themind, consciousness with a small "c," the subject, is a gross and limitedtransformation of Pure Consciousness, how will it fully know or experiencePure Consciousness, the Self in its unlimited form? 11 Just as the senses can'texperience the mind, nor the material world the senses, so the mind/egoentity can't “experience” the Self.According to spiritual science everything is Consciousness, even thematerial world, an effect of which Consciousness is the cause. But asConsciousness involves itself with itself as matter, its "light" apparently getsabsorbed into the object and, on the physical level at least, stops shining. Forexample, even though light reflecting off my body falls equally on a mirrorand the black wall on which it hangs, I will only see myself in the mirror. Italso gets absorbed into a mind clouded with emotion and thought, making itunexperiencable for all intents and purposes. It can, however, be“experienced” in a pure mind.The non-experience school claims the Self is the “light” illumining allexperiences. Humans, they say, are two-tiered: existing on one level as asubject interacting with objects, which necessarily means experience, and onanother as Consciousness, the "Light" that illumines the subject'sexperiences. So in scriptural literature you will find definitions of the Self astranscendent, beyond, uninvolved, and unattached to anything, living in itsown hermetically sealed world, the shining world of knowledge, unaware ofanything other than itself or, as the witness to outer events.Many in the spiritual world, unaware of this fact, incorrectly believethe ego will experience enlightenment like it experiences everything else. Soto save them the grief of trying to "get" a mind-blowing cosmicenlightenment experience, the knowledge people point out that enlightenmentis not that type of experience. Mind-blowing blissful cosmic experiences,which come by the grace of God, not individual effort, are simply mind-11 Consciousness capitalized refers to the Self. Without capitals it refers to the mind.9
Page 1 and 2: SELF-KNOWLEDGE"I am composing this
Page 3: REMOVING THE WALLIf happiness or un
Page 10 and 11: lowing blissful cosmic experiences,
Page 12 and 13: Something tells me this knowledge s
Page 14 and 15: ody.We aren’t our feelings and em
Page 16 and 17: The belief that I am a waker comes
Page 18 and 19: If I’m the sleeper ego, the bliss
Page 20 and 21: itself out and disappears back into
Page 22 and 23: imaginations; ego, filled with self
Page 24 and 25: The next few days saw many experien
Page 26 and 27: here, however, the subtle part, the
Page 28 and 29: state manifests as awareness and ac
Page 30 and 31: At this point in the text the “No
Page 32 and 33: time when it was appropriate? Greed
Page 34 and 35: Simply knowing that everything is a
Page 36 and 37: in the light of the Self.”(19)Tho
Page 38 and 39: ationalized or self-validating cred
Page 40 and 41: through which the Enlightened Being
Page 42 and 43: Of course the idea of a deluded Sel
Page 44 and 45: Since ultimately all transactions,
Page 46 and 47: Nearly everyone has, at moments of
Page 48 and 49: The complex process of experience i
Page 50 and 51: can't. The creative process is, acc
Page 52 and 53: eautifully mixed by the Mind (see "
Page 54 and 55: (Intellect's preoccupation with the
Page 56 and 57: attentioninwardsubtle bodystilledag
Page 58 and 59:
attitudes, especially those which e
Page 60 and 61:
specific results. For example, we t
Page 62 and 63:
DESIRE IS STRESSOne major source of
Page 64 and 65:
Meditation and Self knowledge go ha
Page 66 and 67:
Put together, the sattvic elements
Page 68 and 69:
Sleep is a symbol for ignorance, an
Page 70 and 71:
THE BODYNo particular physical posi
Page 72 and 73:
THE BREATHThe breath, as you’ve u
Page 74 and 75:
If the ego insists on intruding, ma
Page 76 and 77:
of objects in the Self alone and ex
Page 78 and 79:
(40)One symptom of enlightenment si
Page 80 and 81:
“As dawn dispels darkness before
Page 82 and 83:
Listen carefully to the next conver
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This, the last, and the next five v
Page 86 and 87:
Imagine Consciousness arranged in l
Page 88 and 89:
nothing more is to be seen, and whi
Page 90 and 91:
The word, it is said, "killeth." Ho
Page 92 and 93:
agitationattentionfactor“Third Ey
Page 94:
OM TAT SAT94
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