MOVING FROM IGNORANCE TO INTEGRAL KNOWLEDGE -- Growth Online

Growth Online Moving from Ignorance
to Integral Knowledge
Articles

by Roy Posner

(To go directly to main points and conclusions, click here.)

In this article we explore what knowledge really is, and how we can attain it, even to the point where we can acquire at any moment in time a vast and great integral knowledge, that enables us to have a stupendous power for accomplishment and success in life. Knowledge in life is thus an extremely important topic related to personal growth, and will become even more so in the future as humanity begins to tap the higher powers of mind, from the powers of rationality to see life in a greater clarity to the descents of light, of complete intuitions of full knowledge, to the frontiers of knowledge by identity, which are powers of the spiritual dimension of mind.

Imagining a Future of Integral Knowledge, Devoid of Ignorance

Why do humans share a fundamental Ignorance that causes us to know at any moment in time but a fraction of the total knowledge that is there in the environment around us; of the true truth that is emerging at any point in time? Why do we have this Ignorance that radically impedes our ability to know fully, to choose rightly, to enable right actions, leading to continuous misunderstanding, unconsciousness, wrong action, and failure?

How did we arrive at this point? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we move to its opposite -- Integral Knowledge -- where one knows at ten times our normal level of understanding at any given moment in time; enabling perfect understanding, decision, and action; where the infinite potential of life becomes a living reality in our lives as vast accomplishment, success, and joy?

How do we move from our staggering Ignorance to some future existence of Integral Knowledge; where we know all that we need to know at any moment in time; where we constantly have perfect insight and wisdom that enables us to take right action that leads to perfect results? We will attempt to address these and related issues in this article.

To understand Ignorance -- with a capital I as opposed to small I, which we associate with people being ignorant as in uneducated, which is but one part of what we mean by Ignorance-- we need to understand its opposite, Knowledge; again with a capital K, not to be confused with e.g. simply having some knowledge about a subject matter.

To help us understand Knowledge, let us use our imagination. Imagine some future time when man has evolved beyond what he is now. Let's consider what the thinking processes of this evolved being might be like. The first thing we observe is that when he wants to know a thing, he just knows it. He doesn't have to necessarily (e.g.) ask someone else, or read a book or other source of information to gain the knowledge, or find out an answer or determine the solution. He just knows it. He knows the object of inquiry, the object of knowledge in its complete, integral truth; as well as in its right relations to associated knowledge.

Consider a woman who on is working on a project in this remarkable future. Rather than being restricted to her own limited, prejudiced thoughts and feelings about the issues at hand, she has expanded her consciousness so that she is able to include at any moment of time all the possibilities of knowledge that are there in the atmosphere. In that way she has access to, has at her disposal a myriad of possibilities, hence solutions, in her mind at any moment in time. No longer subject to her small, very partial, extremely limited understanding, based on her own narrow perspective and points of view, she has subtlely connected with all possibilities and points of view, giving her, at a given moment in time, a deeper, wider understanding and insight into the subject at hand. Also, because she has raised her consciousness to be one in spirit with all the individuals around her, she is open to their inputs, their perspectives, to their needs and feelings, enabling great insights into the true emerging needs of the project at hand.

This ability to simply know things in their completeness, fullness, and in their integral relationship, is what we mean by "Knowledge" or "Integral Knowledge." It is a status that enables one to understand, perceive, have access to the true truths, the integral truths, the vast quantity and quality of truths that are emerging at any given moment in time. Such a status can only come about when one is living in harmony, unity, and oneness with what is emerging in the atmosphere around one at any moment in time; when one has developed a level of consciousness that is in tune with the flow and becoming of life.

Let's say you were interested in writing something on a particular topic. When you rise to that level of consciousness that enables you to have integral knowledge, you might e.g. suddenly and precisely know what you want to write about, i.e. what the central focus is. One you begin writing, you immediately have the sense of how to express it from its myriad of sides and perspectives; how to relate points and principles in the topic to one another, and how to relate each of these to the whole, to the central point you wish to express. The information gets organized and flows in this way because one has reached a level of consciousness that allows knowledge to flow in this way. In that consciousness one is constantly open to the creative possibilities that are emerging as you write from moment to moment; one is open to a torrent of knowledge that flows from somewhere beyond yourself and simply enters one's mind, a process of knowing that is far different than the hard-thinking processes we normally engage in when trying to know and describe something. In this way truths open to other truths; thoughts to higher thoughts; including the deeper insights and profound principles of life that reveal itself because one has connected to the higher object of knowledge that is the profound superset principle beyond the author's original intent.

The object of inquiry flows into related objects and higher objects of knowledge because one lives in, is open to, senses and expresses the fundamental unity of the knowledge being addressed. The particulars are understood within the context of the whole, and the whole unfolds in the creative expression of the particulars. This is so because our consciousness can catch their essential unity, their oneness of relationship, which is creatively developed in through processes of synthesis and multiplicity.

The Ignorance in the Present Human Existence

This fantastic future human existence is obviously far beyond our current human functioning in life. Our current way of knowing in life is fairly close to the opposite of Knowledge. That opposite we call "Ignorance." Rather than an integrated, unified, perfect, multi-sided Integral knowledge, we have a paltry, partial, miniscule, finite knowledge. Even that miniscule partial part that we believe we understand and know may itself be completely false and in error.

Surely this cannot be the solid basis of understanding and action in life; for the drawing out of insight and wisdom, or be the basis for making important decisions, or for taking the right course of actions in our lives. Such an ignorant existence cannot possibly enable any real or substantial success, accomplishment, and happiness in life. And yet this is precisely the way 99.9% of us live our lives; in Ignorance, far removed from that consciousness that would enable us to continually experience an Integral Knowledge.

Ignorance Born in Creation

So what caused the Ignorance that is so much a part of the current human condition; that is the modus operandi of how we understand, think, reason, perceive things today? So far we have looked to a future possibility of living an Integral Knowledge, in contrast to our current limiting functioning of Ignorance. However, in order to truly know what this Ignorance is, we must also look into the past, to the source of Ignorance.

Our first observation is that this great future that we have envisioned is really a recovery or rediscovery of the original status of Knowledge that is there in the spiritual domain, in the Divine reality, the source of this universe we live in. In other words, in the Divine reality, the source of all creation, the essence of all being, there is an original integral Consciousness, reflected as unity, wholeness, perfection, and infinity of Knowledge. If the Divine reality from which the universe emerged has this unified, integral Consciousness and Knowledge, how was it lost when the universe emerged; when our world came into being, in human life, in the human condition? Furthermore, we must discover how we can restore this integral Consciousness and Knowledge in life?

Let us say for now that something occurred in the process of the creation of the cosmos, in the emergence of the universe from a Divine source, that caused an Original integral consciousness and Knowledge to turn into, to become Ignorance. Something occurred that fractured the unity of consciousness of the Divine Source; causing that Integral Unity of Consciousness, of Knowledge to lose its cohesion.

For now let us set aside the details of this process for another time, and concentrate on the outcome of that process; i.e. how that Ignorance expresses in our own lives.

The Ignorance in the Human Mind

In order to understand how Ignorance manifest in life, we must first understand the nature of the human being, including how we became who we are, and what we are essentially made up of. Let's start with how the universe first came to be.

From some assumed Divine source the universe came into existence. Our own theory of creation is that the Divine manifest the universe we live in in order to extend its own Delight of Being into a universe of forms. Through a great process of creation, the Divine Being extended itself to a Self-consciousness and force, and then through a process of division, further developed to energy at rest, to energy moving, culminating in the matter of the universe. After the universe began as physical matter, it evolved an animus of life, as plants, animals, and human existence; and then evolved a mentality and mind, particularly in the human being. If we focus on the human being that emerged, we see that the matter of the universe manifest as our physical bodies; the animus of life in the universe manifest our own life force and emotional vital being; and mind manifest in us as mentality and thinking capacities; i.e. the human mind. In other words, the individual consists of the physical body, the vital/emotional being, and mind. It is this final plane of mind that distinguishes the human individual from life forms before it; as a self-conscious, self-determining being.

Recall that in that breaking down of the unity and consciousness and knowledge in the process of creation, the Knowledge has turned into Ignorance. In the human individual that Ignorance is expressed primarily in our thinking processes, in the human Mind itself.

To understand how the mind expresses Ignorance, we must understand our mentality. What does Mind in the human, i.e. the human mind in an individual consist of? In essence, mind in man essentially consists of the thoughts, opinions, beliefs, ideas and values that guide our conscious thinking, conceptualizing and decision-making processes.

But our minds, though the essential instrument of human consciousness to perceive and comprehend life is also a flawed instrument. It doesn't see the whole truth of any thing; it only sees a part of any truth. It tends to pick one part or side and say that one part or side is the whole truth, when there are in fact a multiplicity of parts or sides that it rejects. Thus, the mind particularizes things, and most importantly for our inquiry into Ignorance, it excludes things. It is this exclusionary nature of mind that is in life the source and cause of the movement away from the unity and truth of the integral Knowledge. This exclusionary aspect of mind is the cause of our Ignorance.

Also, what we call Falsehood and Evil are simply extensions of Ignorance. What we call Falsehood is a result of our attachment to our Ignorance and unconsciousness. What we call Evil is a result of acting on the unconsciousness of Ignorance and Falsehood.

Ego, Surface Living, and the Exclusivity of Mind

Now let us consider what supports and gives added strength to this exclusionary nature of Mind. If we look forward from where we are now in our Ignorance, we envision a future possibility of how we can evolve to a new human status beyond our current functioning, where we continually experience a wholeness, integrality, and unity of Knowledge. Interestingly, this future status actually harkens back to, rejoins with, closes a circle back to the original unity of consciousness and Knowledge of the Divine, that was there before the birth of the universe. On the other hand, if we look back from our current Ignorance, we also see that our exclusionary human mind is not the original cause of its Ignorance. There was something in the process of creation, in the process by which the universe manifest from a Divine source that engendered the exclusionary qualities of mind.

If we assume that there was a breakdown in the unity of Consciousness and Knowledge before creation, then when the universe manifest there must have already been the seed of Ignorance. Therefore in the universe that emerged -- in the form of matter, and then animated existence as life -- there must already have been this unconsciousness. This suggests that when humans appeared on earth there was already an unconsciousness and Ignorance inbuilt into our being; in our bodies, in our vital/emotional being, culminating in our thinking processes in our minds.

One of the ways that the human expresses this inbuilt unconsciousness is through ego. Ego is the tendency to express one's own thoughts, feelings, and life actions based on our own particular needs and wants and desires, independent of the needs, wants, and desires of others, of the needs and requirements of the environment. It is the great cause of our suffering, and can be seen when our own selfishness turns into our tragedy, desire into pain, and false action taken ending in wrong or failed results. Ego expresses a separateness of ourselves from the world around us; dividing our own desires, needs, et al from the needs and necessities of the environment, of others; even of the universe itself.

Examples of Ignorance Expressing in Life
-A man quickly examines a machine, gives another instruction on how to use it, which ends in failure because the original understanding was misguided and in error.
-A police inspector only sees certain clues, certain pieces to the puzzle, because he is attached to one point of view.
-A doctor only perceives a very limited solution because he is only addressing the surface problems of the patient.
-A researcher only knows only a few dimensions of a piece of history he is studying, ignoring the others.
-A religion knows and believes in their limited doctrine based on scriptures, ignoring 95% of the spiritual knowledge of the world. (A religious fanatic, who turns to terrorism, then acts on that ignorance, thus turning it into Evil.)
-A political leader ignorantly believes he is constantly being threatened. (He becomes attached to the idea in the form of paranoia, which is his Falsehood. He then acts on it killing millions of his countrymen, thus turning his ignorance and falsehood into Evil.)
-A mother whose only interest is in marrying off her daughters, at the expense of all of their other capacities, needs, and wants. (Her attachment to it is falsehood. her acting on it is a touch of evil.)
-A teenager accepts at face value the limited social trends around her.
-A government who only looks out for their own sake without any concern for the interests of other nations.
-A man adamantly loves certain films, and dismisses other of merit completely.
-A woman who dismisses a potential mate after one dinner where the man violates a small social taboo.
-A man is so agitated in his emotions based on rumor that he never gains the balance to listen to the truth that his woman friend truly loves him. He only finds this out much later. (How ego supports an exclusive, false conclusion of mind.)

What does ego have to do with Mind and its exclusionary tendency which engenders Ignorance? It is this: Whenever we live in ego, there is the greater likelihood that Mind will manifest its exclusionary tendency. The more we are in ego, the more Mind tends to be exclusionary, moving away from the true truth, the whole truth, the myriad of truths; reinforcing our Ignorance. The more we live in ego, the more we are separate from others, from the environment, from the emerging possibilities. Ego forces Mind to pick limited, false, and exclusive truths from the myriad of truths. Thus, exclusionary Mind is held hostage to ego and the separateness that ego engenders.

But what supports and fortifies ego? Is there something we do in our lives that magnifies our separateness; our ego-sense? Yes, there is. When we live on the surface of life, it supports and fortifies our separateness, hence ego, which reinforces the exclusivity of Mind that is the basis of Ignorance. If we can somehow move away from our surface existence into a deeper existence within ourselves, we can reduce our separateness, our ego-sense, and thereby dissolve the exclusivity of mind, hence our Ignorance. When we move deeper within into our inner consciousness, we withdraw from the surface bubbling of life, with its ups and downs, ebbs and flows, and pushes and pulls. We begin to emerge from out of our own shell, our own separateness, and become more integrated with all that is around us. We enable a harmony, unity, and oneness with all that that is emerging at any moment; with the myriad of truths that are continually emerging in the atmosphere. This in turn reduces the pressure on our mentality to be exclusive. Also, by moving into the depths within, the Mind begins to move away from, to evolve from its exclusionary status to an inclusive status; dynamically connecting with and absorbing the emerging truths, the multi-sided, full truths and possibilities that are around us; available to us in any moment of time. In other words, by withdrawing from the surface of life to the depths, we overcome our ego and separateness, which enable Mind to move from its exclusionary Ignorance to exclusionary, integral Knowledge.

But how do we go within? There are a number of ways, but in general we must move our center of consciousness away from the outer to a point within us; perhaps to an idea, or to a point of calm or serenity within. Then we can learn to station ourselves at this point.

We call this inner aspect of ourselves our Subliminal or Inner Being. If we can learn to station ourselves there on a regular basis, we will take a great step toward moving away from the surface and the senses influence on mind, so that we can be in a wider, calmer, deeper space from which we can observe life, and allow the forces and powers of life to penetrate us in the depths where we are now poised. In such a state we will get much more of the big picture, of the varying influences, of the emerging possibilities in the environment. Through this single-pointed inner concentration we begin to take the first steps away from sense-oriented thought, to inner focus from which we experience far more of life that is unfolding around us at any moment in time.

The Subliminal, Inner Being
As we move ourselves from the surface of life, we move into the depths of our being; from the outer physical, mental, and vital consciousness to an inner consciousness, also called the subliminal consciousness. At these depths we are in touch with the inner being, the subliminal of the inner mind, vital, and physical realm.

The inner mind and vital exercise an influence and send out their powers or suggestions to our surface consciousness. How much they work depends on how much of an inner life we have. As one gathers experiences from life to life, the inner mind and vital develops according to the use made of the experiences and to the extent they are used by one's personal growth.

As we move into the depths we begin to see that we come in contact with planes of consciousness that have greater subtlety, power, and effectivity for creating results on the outside. As we open ourselves to these greater planes the fixities of cause and effect, space and time give way to spacelessness, timelessness, and infinities of potentials, possibilities, results.

The subliminal parts of our being (i.e. the inner being) includes the inner or subtle physical consciousness, the inner vital, and the inner mind. The inner [parts] have a larger plastic, subtler, freer and rich consciousness than the surface [parts]. The subliminal extends or is capable of extending all over the universe. "It is in direct touch with the universal mind, life-forces, physical forces." The inner consciousness can see behind the thing, it is aware of the play of forces, personal, or universal - for it is in conscious touch with the universal action. The subliminal is more open to the Truth and in direct touch with the universal forces. Our surface being constantly receives something, inner touches, communications, and influences from the subliminal."

Connecting with the Personal Evolving Soul to Shed Ignorance

By going within we have taken the first decisive step toward overcoming the Ignorance in life. Still, we have not nearly completed the task. We have only penetrated its outer shell. To overcome Ignorance in full, to enable an individual to have access to a continuous Integral Knowledge, there needs to be a more dramatic, even a radical change in the nature and consciousness of the individual.

As we have said, the starting point for overcoming Ignorance is a movement within into the depths of one's being; away from the surface consciousness, away from the bombardment of the outer five of the senses that meets the world on the mind, so that mind can think calmly and clearly and rationally, so that one can think and make the necessary decisions in life that produce right action. As we move into the depths within we enable a calm, stillness, and peace to settle in. As a result of this settled, equal, peaceful foundation, we have the balance, equality, and stillness to more easily perceive the truer and fuller truths that are there available, always emerging in the atmosphere. From this status of silence we begin to move away from the ego, from needless attachment, desire, and other limitations of surface living and life that causes us to think exclusively, which engenders our Ignorance. As we learn to live more in the depths of our being, what we call the Subliminal being, we loosen the grip of ego and thus the exclusivity of Mind.

However, to completely overcome Ignorance, we must take yet a greater step, we must make a connection with the deepest parts of our inner being; we must touch our individual soul consciousness.

What is our soul or soul consciousness? Deep within us, in the depths of our being, there is a spark of the Divine that each person has in life. This is what we commonly refer to as the soul. However, as the individual grows and evolves in his life, this soul begins to take on another quality and dimension; it begins to develop a personalized aspect that reflects our own progress in life. As we grow, develop, and evolve in life the personalized soul absorbs that part of our experience that is usable for the personalized soul's own evolution! In that sense this personalized aspect of soul is dynamic; i.e. it changes, and evolves too, just as we evolve.

If we are fortunate enough to make contact with our own personal evolving soul (also called the "Psychic Being" by the Indian sage and seer Sri Aurobindo), we begin to experience a newer deep feeling, sense, and purpose in life. We feel a connection to wider concerns and forces, beyond our old limited sense of self. Centered in our personal evolving soul we are less attracted by, influenced by the surface movements, influences, and bubblings of life, which attracts our delimiting ego-sense and separateness, that maintains and supports the exclusionary tendency of Mind. By continually connecting with our Psychic Being we move a great step forward toward continually sensing the true truths that are emerging in the atmosphere at any moment in time. Whereas connecting with the inner realms is a first step towards the elimination of Ignorance, touching one's personal evolving soul, establishes a new nature, which moves us away from an ego-based existence, toward a more permanent connection through our minds with the greater forces emerging in the environment and the universe, placing us at the doorstep of the vast, infinite, true, whole Integral Knowledge available to us at any moment in time.

As we move within and touch the Psychic Being, the personal evolving soul, we begin to gain knowledge in whole new ways. We start developing higher capacities of mind that bring us to the frontiers of the spiritual aspect of mind. Through our ascension to the planes of "spiritual mind," above and beyond even the high regions of pure logical mind, we begin to experience descents of knowledge from outside ourselves, from the universal plane of Mind. As we live more and more in the psychic realm, in the personal evolving soul, we experience a state of silence, which enables our thinking processes to function far more efficiently. In silence our minds come quickly to the right conclusions, sense the right thoughts, have a clarity of understanding and insight. At a further stage knowledge begins to descend into our minds from the universal plane as illumination of light, of vision, of revelation of knowledge. When Archimedes made his famous statement "Eureka, I've got it!" he in essence experienced a knowledge, an understanding of the object of his inquiry as a descent of light.

Further still one can begin to have intuitions of knowledge descending into one's mind. When one needs to know something, the knowledge simply appears in his mind, without the necessity of any of the ordinary thinking processes of mind. The knowledge simply enters one's mind from the universal plane of mind, where all knowledge resides in its unity and totality. For example, the solution to a scientific inquiry that would normally take six months of research to uncover could simply enter into his mind as intuitions of knowledge in a single day, or even a single moment of time.

We are now quite far away from the very limited, exceedingly partial, superficially prejudiced, functioning of ordinary Mind. As a result of a great development in consciousness, we are now open to the many-sided, multi-faceted, integral understanding, insight, and knowledge that is to us available in the atmosphere at any point in time. As we have established a permanent connection to, a realization of our personal evolving soul, we experience the wholeness, multiplicities, and integralities of knowledge at any point in time through continuous descents of light, illumination, vision, and intuitions of thoughts devoid of any thinking process. We simply know whatever one needs to know, whether we have ever known it before. Through our new consciousness, we have a radically different connection to the object of knowledge that we are interested in.

Attaining the Ultimate Unitarian Truth Consciousness that Enables Integral Knowledge

Still there is one more step that will enable the Ignorance to evaporate; enabling a integral unitarian consciousness of the object of any knowledge to emerge. To enable that perfect oneness and identity with the object of inquiry that gives us ultimate, infinite connection with, identity with the object of knowledge, we must transform ourselves beyond even our connection to our personal evolving soul; beyond even our emergence into the planes of spiritual mind where we experience knowledge as descents of light and intuition. To have this Integral Knowledge, that mirrors the integral consciousness of the Divine Reality, we must discover an ultimate truth consciousness that enables us to become completely one with, in perfect identity with, unseperated from the object of knowledge. This is the unitarian supramental truth consciousness, an ultimate status of human consciousness and evolution.

When we have made contact with this "supra-mental" plane beyond even the spiritual planes of mind, we simply know what needs to be known whenever we need to know it. At this stage of human evolution there is no longer thought, there is not even the need for the descents of light and intuition of the object of knowledge from the universal plane of mind because the knowledge is already in us; available to us from within whenever we need it! Everything is there from within us, whether or not we have ever learned or acquired the knowledge beforehand. At this point of unitarian consciousness we are simultaneously the knower and the creator of the knowledge that we are seeking to know! If we need to know something, we create the knowledge within us and then it appears in our mind, not as a descent of the universal plane from outside, but from within, as if we had biome the universal plane of mind. This is a mind-boggling concept, but it is the ultimate destiny of human consciousness.

At that point we come in contact with the same unitarian plane of consciousness that enabled the universe itself to emerge from a Divine source. We have connected to the self-creating truth consciousness that bore our universe, which we can rise to reveal in integral totality any knowledge that we seek to know.

In the process of the creation of the universe, this truth consciousness, this supramental plane enabled a myriad of forms to come into being from a fathomless infinite and unknowable Divine essence. Those forms became the universe, the stars, the planets, the plants, animals, and human beings. This Force was the coordinating mechanism between the Divine reality and the forms that emerged in creation in the universe. Though this power divided the Divine into forms, it always had a sense of oneness between the source and the details. In other words, it has a unitarian Knowledge of the source (i.e. the Divine), of the details that emanated from that source (i.e. the forms of the universe), and of the perfect unity between the details and the source, and the details to one another. This supramental truth consciousness is thus a unitarian consciousness. In our lives we can rise to this plane where we too experience the perfect unity, oneness, and integrality of the details with the whole. In fact, when we experience Knowledge from a status of an evolved Truth consciousness, we know, are one with the source object of knowledge, the details object of knowledge, the details in relation to the source, and the details in relation to one another.

Let's say that you have risen to this ultimate unitarian truth consciousness. Now you want to discover the cure for a disease. Rooted in that ultimate consciousness, from within yourself you suddenly experience the knowledge in your mind that contains the specific solution. We also know that solution relative to its higher object, i.e. its higher principle of Knowledge, as we also experience the solution in right relation to other details. Such Knowledge simply appears in our brain; even if we have never thought of such a subject before. In fact, the solution may never have even existed before! In that way we can see that from seemingly out of nowhere we are the creators of the solution!

At this point we are truly at the frontiers of human consciousness. We are the creators of the universe, because we have in our hands the same supramental power that enabled the Divine to create the universe we dwell in.

At that point we have shed any trace of the original Ignorance of life. We have gone to and acquired the power of creation. We have reversed the original split in the fabric of consciousness that was there when the universe arrived from a Divine Source. We have dissolved our ego, and separateness, gone within to the depths of one's personal evolving soul, risen to the light and intuitions of knowledge of spiritual mind, and have come upon the ultimate unitarian consciousness, where we have access to infinite knowledge, integral knowledge, instant knowledge that simply rises from within ourselves whenever something needs to be known. In that way we enable perfect solutions, take perfect actions that enable perfect, infinite outcomes; experienced as infinite accomplishment, success, and joy in life. Through our evolution to a unitarian truth consciousness, we have opened ourselves to the Infinite Knowledge in creation, and the infinite, spiritual potential of human existence.

Note: We would like to acknowledge the ideas of Sri Aurobindo in developing the essay contained in this essay. In particular we would like to point to the chapters in his opus The Life Divine that address the issues of Ignorance and the Integral Knowledge. We would also like to thank The Mother's Service Society for their input in helping us understand Sri Aurobindo's ideas in a much clearer light.

MAIN POINTS

-The ability to simply know things in their completeness, fullness, and in their integral relationship, is what we mean by "Knowledge" or "Integral Knowledge." It is a status that enables one to understand, perceive, have access to the true truths, the integral truths, the vast quantity and quality of truths that are emerging at any given moment in time.

-Our current way of knowing in life is fairly close to the opposite of Knowledge. That opposite we call "Ignorance." In the Ignorance we have extremely limited knowledge that is there, that is unfolding at any moment in time; we have false and error-filled knowledge; non-integral, related to the whole knowledge. We are living in one millionth of our knowledge potential at any moment. In that way we are closer to the insect than the potential human being living the Integral Knowledge.

-In the Divine reality, the source of all creation, the essence of all being, there is an original integral Consciousness, reflected as unity, wholeness, perfection, and infinity of Knowledge. Something occurred in the process of the creation of the cosmos, in the emergence of the universe from a Divine source, that caused an Original integral consciousness and Knowledge to turn into, to become Ignorance.

-In that breaking down of the unity and consciousness and knowledge in the process of creation, the Knowledge has turned into Ignorance. In the human individual that Ignorance is expressed primarily in our thinking processes, in the human Mind itself.

-Our minds, though the essential instrument of human consciousness to perceive and comprehend life, is also a flawed instrument. It doesn't see the whole truth of any thing; it only sees a part of any truth. It tends to pick one part or side and say that one part or side is the whole truth, when there are in fact a multiplicity of parts or sides that it rejects. Thus, the mind particularizes things, and most importantly for our inquiry into Ignorance, it excludes things.

-It is the exclusionary nature of mind that is in life the source and cause of the movement away from the unity and truth of the integral Knowledge. This exclusionary aspect of mind is the cause of our Ignorance.

-What we call Falsehood and Evil are simply extensions of Ignorance. What we call Falsehood is a result of our attachment to our Ignorance and unconsciousness. What we call Evil is a result of acting on the unconsciousness of Ignorance and Falsehood. This separateness, rooted in ego and enabled by the limiting action of mind is the root of all falsehood, and evil.

-Whenever we live in ego, there is the greater likelihood that Mind will manifest its exclusionary tendency. The more we are in ego, the more Mind tends to be exclusionary, moving away from the true truth, the whole truth, the myriad of truths; reinforcing our Ignorance.

-When we live on the surface of life, it supports and fortifies our separateness, our sense of own self, rather than the whole of ourselves not separate in relation to the environment and others. This is the ego which reinforces the exclusivity of Mind that is the basis of Ignorance.

-By withdrawing from the surface of life to the depths, we overcome our ego and separateness, which enable Mind to move from its exclusionary Ignorance to exclusionary, integral Knowledge.

-We move to the depths by connecting at a point with our Subliminal being. This is inner concentration.

-Touching one's personal evolving soul, establishes a new nature, which moves us away from an ego-based existence, toward a more permanent connection through our minds with the greater forces emerging in the environment and the universe, placing us at the doorstep of the vast, infinite, true, whole Integral Knowledge available to us at any moment in time.

-As we live more and more in the psychic realm, in the personal evolving soul, we experience a state of silence, which enables our thinking processes to function far more efficiently. In silence our minds come quickly to the right conclusions, sense the right thoughts, have a clarity of understanding and insight. At a further stage knowledge begins to descend into our minds from the universal plane as illumination of light, of vision, of revelation of knowledge. Further still one can begin to have intuitions of knowledge descending into one's mind. When one needs to know something, the knowledge simply appears in his mind, without the necessity of any of the ordinary thinking processes of mind. The knowledge simply enters one's mind from the universal plane of mind, where all knowledge resides in its unity and totality.

-To have this Integral Knowledge, that mirrors the integral consciousness of the Divine Reality, we must discover an ultimate truth consciousness that enables us to become completely one with, in perfect identity with, unseperated from the object of knowledge. This is the unitarian supramental truth consciousness, an ultimate status of human consciousness and evolution.

-As a result of a great development in consciousness, we are now open to the many-sided, multi-faceted, integral understanding, insight, and knowledge that is to us available in the atmosphere at any point in time. In that way we function with the ultimate mental efficiency in life; enabling the greatest and highest quality knowledge to enter our minds in the shortest period of time with the least effort. We bring the future into the present. We open ourselves to have the knowledge to accomplish at 1000 or more times faster, better then we do now. We open the doors of the infinite Knowledge to appear in the finite Ignorance of the present. We open the doorways to becoming a new evolutionary being.

To review additional Growth Online thoughts on "Acquiring True Knowledge in Life," click here.

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To read the Growth Online interview that considers how we can truly understand and know things from their widest truth, so that we can accomplish at the highest level in life, click here.

To read about how living in the depths moves us away from surface living, enabling a great change in one's perspective of life, including he shedding of Ignorance, and the movement towards true knowledge in life, click here.

To learn about making the transformation that connects one permanently to one's personal soul being, enabling the decisive turn in shedding Ignorance, click here.

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