Michael James about what is true knowledge based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi - Part1

[Guest guest]

Let us first decide what knowledge can be considered as true. To qualify as

being true knowledge in the strictest sense of the term, the knowledge in

question must be absolutely true – perfectly,permanently, unconditionally

and independently true. That is, it must be a knowledge that is true in its

own right, a knowledge that is true at all times, in all states and under

all conditions, a knowledge whose truth is not in any way dependent upon,

limited by or relative to any other thing, a knowledge whose truth is ever

unchanging and immutable, being unaffected by anything else that may appear

or disappear, or by any changes that may occur around it. It must also be

self-evident, perfectly clear and absolutely reliable – devoid of even the

least ambiguity or uncertainty – and must be known directly – not through

any intervening media upon whose truth and reliability its own truth and

reliability would then depend. Only such knowledge can be considered to be

true knowledge in an absolute sense.

 

We all recognise the fact that much of the knowledge that our mind takes to

be true at certain times is not actually true. For example, our mind may

mistake an illusion to be true while it is experiencing it, but it later

recognises that it was at that time mistaken in its judgement of what is

true or real. Likewise, our mind mistakes its experiences in a dream to be

true while it is actually experiencing that dream, but it later recognises

that all those experiences were imaginary and therefore not true. Since we

know that our mind is easily deceived into believing that whatever it is

currently experiencing is true, how can we rely upon our mind as a

dependable instrument through which we can acquire true knowledge?

 

 

Our mind is not just deluded temporarily into mistaking its own imaginations

to be true, but is also deluded repeatedly into making this same mistake.

Having once understood that in dream it was deluded into mistaking the

unreal to be real, it does not thereby become immune from being again

deluded in the same manner. The same delusion repeats itself again and again

whenever our mind experiences a dream.

 

Since it is unable to learn from its repeated mistakes, our mind is a very

unreliable judge of what knowledge is true and what knowledge is false. When

it is so frequently incapable of recognising its own imaginations as false,

how can we be sure that anything that it experiences is not merely an

illusion, an unreal product of its own imagination?

 

Whatever else we may know, and even when we know nothing else, we always

know ‘I am’. Therefore our basic knowledge ‘I am’ is not only completely

independent of all other knowledge, it is also permanent and unchanging.

Other forms of knowledge may come and go, and they may even appear to be

superimposed temporarily upon our basic knowledge ‘I am’, thereby seemingly

obscuring it (though never actually hiding it), but this knowledge ‘I am’

itself remains permanently, without ever coming or going, appearing or

disappearing, or beginning or ending, and without ever undergoing any

change. Therefore this basic knowledge of our own being, ‘I am’, is the only

absolute knowledge we experience.

 

So long as the focus of our consciousness or attention rests naturally upon

ourself, we remain as the infinite real consciousness or true knowledge that

we always are, but when the focus of our consciousness seems to be diverted

towards imaginary objects or thoughts, we seem to become the finite

consciousness that we call our ‘mind’. Therefore, if our mind wishes to

experience the true knowledge that is its own real self, all it need do is

withdraw its attention from all other things and to focus it keenly upon its

own essential consciousness, ‘I am’. This state in which our mind thus rests

its attention in itself, knowing only its own being or consciousness, is

described by Sri Ramana in verse 16 of Upadesa Undiyar as the state of true

knowledge:

 

[Our] mind knowing its own form of light, having given up [knowing] external

objects, alone is true knowledge.

 

When our mind knows ‘external objects’ or things other than itself, it does

so by mistaking itself to be a physical body, which is one among those other

things that it knows. But when it withdraws its attention back towards

itself, it will cease to know any other thing, and thereby it will cease to

mistake itself to be a physical body or any other product of its

imagination.

 

By thus attending only to its own essential consciousness or ‘form of

light’, and thereby giving up attending to any form of imagination, our mind

will experience itself as its own natural consciousness of being, ‘I am’. In

other words, by attending to and knowing only its own true consciousness of

being, our mind will merge and become one with that consciousness. This

non-dual experience of true self-consciousness is the state of true and

absolute knowledge.

 

All the knowledge that we have of objects is only thoughts that our mind has

formed within itself by its power of imagination. We cannot know any objects

– anything other than our own being, ‘I am’ – except through the medium of

our mind. Hence we cannot know whether any object really exists independent

of the thought of it that we have formed in our mind. Therefore all our

knowledge about everything other than ‘I am’ is nothing but thoughts, which

are only as real as our mind that has formed them.

 

Just as the snake disappears because it is imaginary and therefore never

really existed, so our mind will disappear because it is imaginary and has

therefore never really existed. And just as the sole reality underlying the

imaginary appearance of the snake is the rope, so the sole reality

underlying the imaginary appearance of our mind is our fundamental non-dual

self-consciousness, ‘I am’.

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram