Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Hi Edji,


I realize that there is clinging on my part to have a certain type of experience that is sustainable. I long for that pure awareness state when there is no K or I and simply the arising and the pure witnessing of the manifest, the utter joy and bliss. But whatever experience I am looking for, it will still be within consciousness and it is not me. In a way once I recognize this the search and longing is over. But it seems I forget and go back and forth. A movement within Consciousness I guess. The doubts creep up on me.


But yes, I agree with you, longing for all kinds of experiences is a trap. They are important experiences to learn about that which witnesses them but eventually human life with its mundane experiences is just as significant. I think this is the coming back that you talk about. This is where freedom and enlightenment is found - within the myriad of all my experiences, when I know that they come and go but do not touch me. Free to fully experience life, to go wherever Consciousness takes me.


It appears that all that movement of Shakti has one and only one purpose - for the Self to know itself. An ever expanding movement toward knowing. At first it is only partial knowing. Knowing different aspects of Consciousness that we humans are aware of. Through the glimpses all beings have when their physical body dies, in the transition from one form to another. People who come back from a near-death experience talk about it. In the moments of intense experiencing, bold creativity, deep longing and love that help us transcend briefly the mind and see beyond. And the highest knowing when a sentient being realizes that all that is known is not me, it is only an appearance in Consciousness and I am the witness. That all that is known is not static but rather pure knowing. Ever arising, ever expanding. But then a knowing arises about that which witnesses it all, pure knowing about the source of all this knowing. The knowing that I cannot be known. The fact that I exist, that I am becomes known only through Consciousness but when knowing Me I become non-existent, non-manifest, timeless, unborn.


What a joke indeed. I, the Self want to know myself but by knowing an aspect of me I am not me anymore. Knowing Self means knowing not, existing not, dying not.


Love,


K.


Edji:


This the pinnacle of Advaita freedom so well expressed.  It is not permanently residing in a beyond experience state, but knowing in your heart and mind that you are beyond all, and that the knowing of consciousness is purely an exquisite game that you, as the absolute, play with consciousness, and you delight in each other.