Direct Experience & The Deeper Nonconceptual Knowing

So then this ability to ask a true question comes from becoming familiar with and familiar with and comfortable with not knowing. The state of not knowing, which ultimately is the state of not thinking. Because when you're not thinking, you don't know anything. Conceptually, you don't know anything. And yet when you're not thinking, a different dimension of consciousness arises that has no conceptual knowledge in it. But there is an intelligence there, there is a vast intelligence there that is non conceptual. In order to have a balanced life, we need to be able to dwell in both of these dimensions. The dimension of conceptual knowledge, we can't do without it. And the conception of the deeper, I call it the deeper knowing, that is non conceptual. So it's not ignorance. I often recommend that you should try this out in everyday life and see. How do you know something? How do you experience something new? You can go into nature, you can go into a forest. You can experience the forest through your conceptual knowledge, depending on how much you know about trees and plants and birds and vegetation and so on. And you can, as you go, you enter a forest, you've never been there, and you immediately, you can say, well, this is that. And that's a such and such a tree, the approximate age, how it grows, the nature of the soil, you know a lot. Or you could go and ask somebody to explain the forest to you. You have a guide. So the guide takes you into the forest and explains and you learn a lot about the trees. And after an hour you come out again and you have absorbed an enormous amount of knowledge about the forest. That is one way of knowing the forest conceptually, and there's nothing wrong with it. But there's another way of knowing. You go into the forest and you don't have a guide and you don't know much about trees or anything. You go into the forest and simply experience the forest directly, without the intermediary of conceptualization, which means you look at the trees, you look at the plants, you take in all the sense perceptions of the forest, the totality of sense perceptions. Not only do you look at individuals, life forms, you're also aware of the totality of the forest. That is an energy field that surrounds you. And all these things, you take that in with little or no conceptual thinking. So you're beginning to know this forest in a totally different way that is non conceptual and that moves you. It's also you experience the forest. No longer do you experience a. A clear separation between you and that amazing life form which is the forest around you. There is a sense of merging with. There's a sense of oneness with it, which cannot be there. When you approach it through conceptual knowledge. The concept is a little sticking labels on things and then mistaking the label for what it is. It's that, oh, now I know what it is. This is the name of the tree, now I know what it is. No, you don't. You've just put a label on that mysterious and miraculous and profound thing, and then you believe every label. That's what it is. It's not. You don't know what it is. You just have a name for it. But we need that kind of knowledge too. But the thing is, if all you have or most of your life is conducted through conceptual knowledge, and this is what is encouraged in our civilization, when that is all you know, then a vital dimension is missing from your life. A very vital dimension. In fact, one could almost say you inhabit a very much a surface reality. I think there's a Ken Widow, the philosopher, I think, calls it Flatland. You inhabit this flatland and so there's no depth to anything. There's just conceptualization. You inhabit ultimately a universe that is dead, deadened, or you are dead to it because you can no longer experience it in its depths. And also, of course, when you are confined to knowledge, conceptual knowledge only, for example, in regard to nature, you cannot possibly sense the iuctantly, reluctantly use the word the sacredness of nature. In fact, from a point of view, conceptualization, sacredness is a meaningless term. When you say the sacredness of the forest, they say, can you please define what exactly do you mean? Means you want more concepts. So you can't understand what this pointer, sacredness, what it points to. You don't know it until you get a glimpse of it. And then you say no explanation will suffice for you to know what sacredness is. In the same way that as Matthew Ricard said the other day here, the famous example from the east, you can talk about honey for a long time. You can write a PhD about honey. I'm sure people have done that. And you've never tasted it. So you know an enormous amount about honey, but you have never tasted honey. So do you know honey? No. You know about honey, but you don't know honey. Because there are two different modalities of knowing the world. So we need to be in both without being especially. We need to be careful not to be absorbed continuously by conceptual knowledge, which is not only about things, even about other human beings. How do you know a person? What do you know about A person. In some languages, this is interesting. There's sometimes wisdom embodied in language. In Spanish or French, you have actually two words for to know. There are different ways of knowing. One is a more abstract knowing, which in Spanish would be saber. You say, I know, this is a fact, I know who he is. You say, quienes, I know who he is. But if you know him, you use a different verb. Konoscope, I know you. I know who you are uses one verb. I know you uses a different verb. So there's in French the same savoir and connaitre. So this is very interesting. So there's sometimes certain amount of wisdom embodied in language. So the knowing, saber connetre, that would be the more direct non conceptual knowing. So our task is to, again, this is related also to doing and being. We need to be able to move in both and have access to both modalities of knowing without. Our danger is losing ourselves in the conceptual mind. So. So that we inhabit, ultimately we inhabit a universe that is basically lifeless and dead, because these are lifeless concepts. So this means we need to develop the ability to periodically let go of the conceptual mind without losing consciousness. So it's not. You're not going to sleep, you're not falling off the chair, because you've had six whiskeys, I don't know how many you need to fall off the chair. But you let go of the conceptual mind and just be present with what is. And then you can know anything, you can know whatever it is through sense perception. You become very much more aware of sense perception, and you take it. Certainly things suddenly become more vitally or vibrantly alive when you look at something without interference of the conceptual mind. And at the same time, you're not only acutely aware of sense perception so that things are more alive suddenly around you, but you're also aware of the underlying presence of consciousness itself, which is you. You're aware of yourself, not the person, but you're aware of yourself as the presence. And so you become the space for whatever arises there. And so that's a totally different way of knowing something. It.