Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer The Path to Reality Through the Self

Mental Perspectives 105
which Rose’s teaching aims: the realization of validity meaning, arriving at true Selfhood and from
this, the direct, comprehensive understanding of the nature of all things. This realization should not
be mistaken to involve the admittedly appealing notion that the one experiencing union with the
Absolute will then also know all the details of experience within the relative world. Rose explains
that Enlightenment is the experience of totality, which does not automatically include precise knowledge
of everything within the All. He tells his students: “I know everythingbut that doesn’t mean I
know how many hairs are on your head.” By this, he is saying that he knows what Reality is, but does
not necessarily know the whereabouts of every shadow cast on the wall of the cave.
To explain this distinction more clearly, Rose offers a subtle description of what the path he is
describing finally involves: “There is a threshold where we may cross from relative understandings
and assumptions, to a place without dimension...and know that we are doing it” (Rose, unpublished
group papers). Isolating what knows is the aim of the work.