What Do You Know, and How Do You Know It?
When asked a question, to really know the answer means to find it deep within yourself. But what does that mean?
There is a big difference between feeling as deeply within as you are capable of feeling and feeling all the way to the depth. Commonly, people are taught that the depth of their being is an emotional level. That is not correct. Others believe that it is an intellectual level of clarity, which is also incorrect.
The depth of your being is generally a highly elusive thing. Why? Because of what I call ‘astral echoes’. When you drop a pebble in a pond, rings ripple out in concentric circles. Each circle corresponds to the circle closer to the center. All existence, including your being and your psyche, is like that. For example, when someone says they feel their oneness with everything, it means different things on different levels. New Agers may hold hands and emotionally feel they are one with everything. Many religions incite this emotional response with music and pomp. I remember when I would lecture about oneness in the early 1970s, hippies would say they took LSD and had the experience of Oneness, or God, and therefore, knew everything I was talking about. Even intellectuals reflect on modern physics theories of Oneness and decide that they ‘get it’. Spiritual leaders also decide that they ‘get it’ and promote their perspective. I call that the ‘I Get It Syndrome’. Due to astral echoes, everything has a corresponding meaning on all levels (concentric rings around the pebble in the pond) and the listener is certain they know exactly what you are talking about. This is why spiritual knowledge is so highly elusive.
Memorizing spiritual teachings and texts is not the solution. Why? Because they are read from the level of understanding of the reader and are thusly interpreted. That is why so many spiritually oriented people think they are ‘enlightened’. After all, they totally ‘get it’. Right?
To truly under-stand is to look deeper, to see deeper, to experience deeper and deeper levels until the very depth of your being is known.
The depth of your being lies beyond the reach of thoughts… beyond the reach of emotions. It transcends relativity. To attain it is to refine, refine, refine, your awareness. The most powerful tool to do that is PROPER MEDITATION. The cultivation of discernment is also essential. Otherwise, you lose yourself to echoes of Truth, perceived as Truth, which then holds Truth at bay.
Indeed, the path to Truth is highly elusive. Of course, that is actually a good thing. If not so elusive, everyone would have figured it all out long ago and the game would be over!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
In the US, these four planets are close together and these days easily visible in the early morning eastern sky before sunrise.
An article I wrote about the presidential debates was just published on the front page of Elephant Journal! I’m honored to be a contributing author for a publication so intent on encouraging a conscious life. The article, Presidential Debates: What We Should be Asking Ourselves, asks readers some important questions about evaluating the 2016 presidential hopefuls. How do you separate substance from style? Merit from charisma? Sincerity from pandering?
