Becoming the Experiencer of the Experience, the Knower of the Knowing

 ...We are better off becoming the experiencer of the experience, the knower of the knowing.

Michael A. Singer

I Know Nothing

This vehicle I drive around in, this "me" with its body, mind, socially defined roles and drama, was partially built on an image of a "knower".  I spent a great deal of my lifetime becoming a knower in order to redeem myself from a sense of inadequacy. I spent a lot of time "learning" and earning credits, certificates, diplomas and degrees to prove my "knowing" and my right to be called a "knower." I spent a lot of time teaching on a personal and professional level, enhancing myself in the public eye as a knower. I see now how I prided myself on this "image" (and that is all it ever was...a flimsy image) doing whatever I could to polish it and keep it shining, when in truth I never really knew very much at all about anything. I especially didn't know anything about what was really important. I never really experienced knowing. Wow! I see that now.

Flimsy Image

It wasn't until recently that I began to awaken enough to see how flimsy this image was/is. It wasn't until my image as a knower lost its clout "out there" that I  began to go deeper beyond it, to experience and know in a way I never did before. I then began to ask, "Who is experiencing this?"  "Who is the Experiencer of this experience, the Knower of this knowing?"  That is where I am now on my journey- seeking the Experiencer of the experience, and the Knower of the knowing. 

Why am I here?

I have come to see through my practice that the process of knowing and experiencing this life is not for the "little me",who can do neither, but for  the deeper, wiser "I" within. The "me" is often in the way for most of us, drawing the wonderful power of consciousness to it, so we cannot see anything else but it. Our focus on "me" with all its likes and dislikes, with its primary intention of preventing the samskaras from bothering us again, is like a big wall between conscious awareness and true knowing, between absent mindedly going through the motions of Life, and true experience. This wall hides the Experiencer and the Knower from our conscious awareness.

Truly, Deeply...

To truly know and to truly experience, we need to do so from the deepest parts of Who we are, where the Knower and the Experiencer exist.  In order to do that we need to get our consciousness through the wall of "me". This "me" prevents us from seeing all, from opening fully to the Life experience, and from full knowing. This wall is like a selectively permeable membrane letting only somethings in and some things out. This wall is programmed to resist reality when it is uncomfortable and to pull in reality when it is comfortable. Of course, this greatly limits our experience, limits our ability to truly know as the Experiencer and the Knower. 

I fear this is starting to sound like one of those, How much wood can a woodchuck chuck tongue twisters :)  I am just trying to reinforce that we have to see through the "me" to what is real. When we truly see, we will truly experience and know.

Resistance Stunts Our Growth

This wall of "me" is built on resistance to what is. When we resist any of  what unfolds in front of us, Singer reminds us, we do not experience Life as it is.  If we do not experience Life as it is, we do not grow and evolve like we are here to do. Resistance stunts our growth.

Dealing with Reality as the Knower and the Experiencer

Our growing  is not about what we think should be happening "out there" but what is really happening.  It is not about living in our heads on this superficial plane of existence but about going deeper and truly experiencing Life as it is happening. It is not about the images we create of self,  about impressing others with what we do or say we know, it is about seeing the flimsy unreality of that image and getting to truly know who we are .   It is not about resisting anything because it may be uncomfortable, but opening up to, allowing it in and honoring everything so we can truly know and experience Life as the Knower and the Experiencer of it.

Hmm! Well that is all I have to say. 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe ( October 12) Spirituality is the Ability to Handle Reality