"My advice to you, whoever you may be.
Oh! You who desire to explore the mysteries of nature.

If you do not discover within yourself what you seek,

neither will you find it without.

If you ignore the excellencies of your own house,

how can you aspire to find excellencies elsewhere?

Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures.
Oh! Man, know thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods."


- Inscription at the entrance of the Temple of Delphi in Greece

What is Spiritual Knowing?


Question: How does ‘spiritual knowing’ come about?

The route of information is quite different between spirit and mind. The ego/mind is inquisitive and aggressive in style. It grabs onto data and seeks to incorporate and master it. It categorises, qualifies, evaluates, sorts, files and classifies, judges and colours with feelings and abstract meanings in an attempt to assimilate. All new data is also rated as to its potential usefulness or gain value. There is a never ending hunger of the mind to ‘get’.

People force the mind to concentrate, learn, memorize, accumulate and master huge volumes of information with as many details as possible, including sophisticated statistical analysis and computer manipulation. All this endless detail is deemed to be even better if it can be depicted graphically and packaged attractively.

On inspection it will be seen that all the above is an impressive performance, and doubly so when one observes that all the complicated, multifaceted processing occurs in a fractions of a second. Not only is there the current instance of processing, but simultaneously, the mind is comparing this split second with every other similar split second, contrasting that through the memory time file for comparison.

In other words this zebra is compared mentally with every other zebra one had read about, heard about, talked about, seen on television, and joked about, including evolutionary camouflage theory, etc: The mind tends to do all these complicated multifactoral operations automatically as a result of its own nature.

By selection, one can choose available options to explore by focus. Although the possible functions are multitudinous, they are not unlimited. In summary, the mind views truth or enlightenment as something to be acquired or achieved. At best, it is a destination to be arrived at through effort. All such endeavour is premised on the presumption that the functions of the mind serve as a learning model and its processes are to be merely applied from the past to this new subject in the realm of duality where it supposedly will be equally useful. Thus it presumes that the applicability of that which is evolved for handling duality is useful in the search for nonduality.

Such, however is not the case; in fact, the very opposite of what has come to be viewed as the reliable, tried-and-true method of making progress now becomes the very obstacle to discovery.

Whereas ordinary mental functioning could be typified as a constant effort to ‘get’, spiritual realisation is totally effortless, passive, and spontaneous. It is received rather then gotten. By analogy, when sound stops, the silence reveals itself. It cannot be gotten by effort or endeavour.

With mentation there is the capacity to control, but with revelation, there is no control at all. No control is possible where there is nothing to control and there is no means to apply control, even if it were possible. That which is formless cannot be manipulated.

Enlightened awareness is best described as a state or condition, a realm or a dimension. It is self-revealing and all prevailing. It eclipses and displaces mentation which becomes unnecessary and would, in fact, be an interference and an intrusion. Revelation is subtle, powerful, soft gentle, exquisite, and all embracing. The senses are bypassed and all perception of ‘this’ or ‘that’ disappears. It is also apparent that the entire content of revelation has been there all along and simply not experienced or observed. The vision of what ‘Is’ in its totality is entirely ‘Known’ by virtue of the Self already being All That Is.

Identity confers absolute authority of knowledge. The observer, that which is observed, and the process of observation are all identical.

In awe at the revelation, the mind is silent and becomes speechless at the wonder. Its silence is like a profound relief and peace. What was once prized is now seen to have been a nuisance and a troublesome distraction.

People and their thoughts and words are like voice boxes connected to various energy fields. The mouths and minds parrot the thought forms that prevail at any given level of consciousness. As this occurs, the minds of individuals claim authorship and the prefix ‘mine’ is added to the thought. The content reflects the self-concept of the person speaking.

There is an invisible, all-encompassing energy field of love that surrounds everyone. Therein resides the higher self or spirit through which, the individuals in varying degrees of consciousness, contact awareness or, unfortunately, may be cut off from it altogether.

If quite unidentified with the Self, the individual may be afraid or even repelled by love, which is seen as foreign, threatening, and to be resisted. All reminders of love or references to God have to be stricken from public awareness or acknowledgement. This is intrinsic to the success of totalitarianism or military dictatorships where only ‘love’ for the dictator is allowable. In our society there are forces to make any reference to God ‘politically incorrect’.

In true spiritual endeavour no actual sacrifices are necessary or expected. Sacrifice in ordinary terminology means loss or even painful loss. True sacrifice really means letting go of the less for the greater and is self-rewarding rather than depleting. Painful, reluctant ‘giving up’ is not really sacrifice but an attempt to purchase religious favour. With God, there is neither buy, sell, purchase, sacrifice, gain, favour, nor loss.

In the realm of the divine, there are no rights to parade or proclaim. The world of rights and wrongs and political rights are all inventions of the ego to be used as bargaining pieces on life’s game board. They are all based on seeking advantage and gain. In the Reality of nonduality, there is neither privilege nor gain nor loss nor rank.

Just like a cork in the sea, each spirit rises or falls in the sea of consciousness to its own level by virtue of its own choices, and not by any external force or favour. Some are attracted by the light and some seek the darkness, but it all occurs of its own nature by virtue of divine freedom and equality.

In a completely integrated universe, on all levels nothing accidental is possible. To be truly accidental, an ‘event ‘would have to transpire completely outside the universe which, by simple observation, is an impossibility. Chaos is only a perceptual concept. In reality, no chaos is possible. All in all, the mind of God is the ultimate attractor pattern which governs the totality of All That Is, down to the smallest iota.

- from THE EYE of the I by David R Hawkins

-Image Buddha, by Loïs Mailou Jones, 1927

More here: http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/jones.html