When we were asked to teach, we were advised to teach only what we know to be true.
What does ‘Know’ mean? This Knowing is a knowing as Truth rather than of Truth. To know of Truth would require a separation between the knower and Truth. Sages point out that concepts always change and always have opposites. Concepts can never lead to true Knowing. They can never lead to knowing as immutable Truth. The same is true of perceptions.
What can we know that is not based on conceptions or perceptions? “What does not change” is not a concept or a perception; “what does not change” is self-validating and immediately available.
Adyashanti points to Truth as “always and already,” encouraging us to “let everything be as it is.”
Ananta points out, “To know even one thing is to know too much.”
Wei Wu Wei offers, “Reality (noumenon) is motionless, ubiquitous, and permanent.”
The only Known in Self-realization is not a thing. Self is beyond space, time, concepts, perceptions, or any other attribute in the apparent universe of things.
There are multiple words that are used to point to this non-thing: Self, Awareness, Is, Absolute, This, Truth. These words are, however, merely placeholders for recognition beyond the scope of words.
Sharing Truth can feel repetitious, therefore, few spiritual teachers seem to hold to the admonition to teach only what we know to be True from direct experience. Ananta, Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Mooji, are among those teachers who stay tightly true to this standard . . . for the most part. They would be the first to point out that the only perfect teacher is a dead teacher. Dharma shared through a variety of personalities provides different flavors of the same Truth, but those flavors, spoken from direct experience as Truth, do not corrupt with hubris.
Ramana often pointed questioners to look to who is asking the question, and as This, see if the question still persists.
Self-realization does not bring an experiential answer to “why,” “how,” “what” questions. It is certainly normal for folks to ask these questions, but the answers are outside the scope of what is knowable and, ideally, stay beyond the scope of our spiritual sharing in Satsang. Satsang is a sharing as what we Know as Truth. We may have insights we feel are suggestive of answers to these sorts of questions, but it is a very slippery slope destined to fail when spiritual teachers begin to share these concepts in Satsang as expressions of Truth.
Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk, when asked the essence of his teaching reportedly replied, in essence, “vast emptiness, no knowing, no holiness.” This may be the most complete answer we have found to the question of what do “spiritual” teachers know . . . and is still merely a pointer.
Namaste, Bec and Steve