Working with Correct Knowledge/Perception and Incorrect Knowledge/Perception
Today as I read from the book AN UNENTANGLED KNOWING by Upasika Kee Nanayon I came across a section titled "The Deceits of Knowing" (the book being comprised of talks she gave, this one given in 1964.) I'm sharing it on the Forum here because her description of inner probings seems to parallel Patanjali's reference to correct and incorrect perception except she refers to it as correct and incorrect knowledge (namely direct knowledge/ insight gained in meditation). Her description is dynamic and vivid regarding subtleties of meditation.
I keep going back to this book. It is relevant to my practice every time in a different way. I share the excerpt below for anyone who may benefit.
The Deceits of Knowing (January 29,1964)
You have to find approaches for contemplating and probing at all times so as to catch sight of the flickerings of awareness, to see in what ways it streams out to know things. Be careful to catch sight of it both when its knowing is right and when it’s wrong. Don’t mix things up, taking wrong knowledge for right, or right knowledge for wrong. This is something extremely important for the practice, this question of right and wrong knowing, for these things can play tricks on you.
When you gain any new insights, don’t go getting excited. You can’t let yourself get excited by them at all, because it doesn’t take long for your insight to change---to change right now, before your very eyes. It’s not going to change at some other time or place. It’s changing right now. You have to know how to observe, how to acquaint yourself with the deceits of knowledge. Even when it’s correct knowledge, you can’t latch onto it. Even though we may have standards for judging what sort of knowledge is correct in the course of our practice, don’t go latching onto correct knowledge---because correct knowledge is inconstant. It changes. It can turn into false knowledge, or into knowledge that is even more correct. You have to contemplate things very carefully---very, very carefully---so that you won’t fall for your knowledge, thinking, “I’ve gained right insight; I know better than other people,” so that you won’t start assuming yourself to be special. The moment you assume yourself, your knowledge immediately turns wrong. Even if you don’t let things show outwardly, the mere mental event in which the mind labels itself is a form of wrong knowing that obscures the mind from itself in an insidious way.
This is why meditators who tend not to contemplate things, who don’t catch sight of the deceits of every form of knowledge---right and wrong, good and bad---tend to get bogged down in their knowledge. The knowledge that deceives them into thinking, “What I know is right,” gives rise to strong pride and conceit within them, without their even realizing it.
This is because the defilements are always getting into the act without our realizing it. They’re insidious, and in their insidious way they keep getting into the act as a matter of course, for the defilements and mental effluents are still there in our character. Our practice is basically a probing deep inside, from the outer levels of the mind to the inner ones. This is an approach that requires a great deal of subtlety and precision….The mind has to use its own mindfulness and discernment to dig everything out of itself, leaving just the mind in and of itself, the body in and of itself, and then keep watch of them. (end of excerpt)
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Upasika Kee Nanayon wrote:
You have to know how to observe, how to acquaint yourself with the deceits of knowledge. Even when it’s correct knowledge, you can’t latch onto it. Even though we may have standards for judging what sort of knowledge is correct in the course of our practice, don’t go latching onto correct knowledge---because correct knowledge is inconstant. It changes. It can turn into false knowledge, or into knowledge that is even more correct. You have to contemplate things very carefully---very, very carefully---so that you won’t fall for your knowledge, thinking, “I’ve gained right insight; I know better than other people,” so that you won’t start assuming yourself to be special. The moment you assume yourself, your knowledge immediately turns wrong
This is why meditators who tend not to contemplate things, who don’t catch sight of the deceits of every form of knowledge---right and wrong, good and bad---tend to get bogged down in their knowledge. The knowledge that deceives them into thinking, “What I know is right,” gives rise to strong pride and conceit within them, without their even realizing it.
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MiBeloved’s Remark
I agree that this is similar to Patanjali’s requirement about correct and incorrect analysis being a no no for meditation. Her statement that identification with any form of knowledge (right or wrong) gives rise to pride, shows the angle from which she is meditating and also reveals something about the method of her process.
Further on in the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali speaks of kaivalyam where there is to be a separation between the perception equipment and the coreSelf.
तदभावात्संयोगाभावो हानं तद्दृशेः कैवल्यम्॥२५॥
tad abhāvāt saṁyogā abhāvaḥ hānaṁ taddṛśeḥ kaivalyam
tad = tat – that spiritual ignorance; abhāvāt – resulting from the elimination; saṁyogā – conjunction; abhāvaḥ – disappearance, elimination; hānaṁ – withdrawal, escape; tad = tat – that; dṛśeḥ – of the perceiver; kaivalyam – total separation from the mundane psychology.
The elimination of the conjunction which results from the elimination of that spiritual ignorance is the withdrawal that is the total separation of the perceiver from the mundane psychology.( Yoga Sutras 4 25)
In inSelf Yoga™ this is tackled differently with
- recognition that there is an equipment for analysis which is the intellect
- during meditation, coreSelf should disconnect from the intellect whenever that psychic gland operates its analysis operations
As Buddha declared that there is suffering and that there is an end to it (there could be an end to it for each ascetic). So, I declared that there is an intellect and there can be a separation from it.
While inSelf Yoga declares a psychic organ, it seems that the other systems do not regard it as such.
Stated differently, inSelf Yoga™ targets the psychic organ involved in the analysis operations rather than the activities of the organ, but of course that is based on the ascetic’s discovery of the organ in the mind chamber. While otherwise if there is no such discovery, then any effective method of demolishing or prohibiting the mento-emotional activities would satisfy the need.
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Patanjali listed five mento-emotional operations which should not be happening during meditation. Of these four concern the intellect. But one of these, sleep is something else. If this writer says anything about that, please give the statement, here or in a new discussion.
The four of the intellect are:
- correct analysis
- incorrect analysis
- imagination
- memory
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In regards to the query about sleep, I only came across a brief mention of it in the UNENTANGLED KNOWING book. There, Ms. Nanayon lumps it in with the 5 hindrances which must be overcome. I will quote her in context on that:
“The Hindrance of sensual desire is like a dye that clouds clear water, making it murky---and when the mind is murky, it’s suffering. Ill will as a Hindrance is irritability and dissatisfaction, and the Hindrance of sloth and torpor is a state of drowsiness and lethargy---a condition of refusing to deal with anything at all, burying yourself in sleep and lazy forgetfulness. All the Hindrances, including the final pair---restlessness and anxiety and uncertainty (doubt)---cloak the miond in darkness. This is why you need to be resilient in fighting them off at every moment and investigating them so that you can weaken and eliminate every form of defilement from the gross to the middling and on to the subtle---from the mind.”
Regarding Sri Patanjali’s assertion of the total separation of the perceiver of the mundane psychology you referenced:
The elimination of the conjunction which results from the elimination of that spiritual ignorance is the withdrawal that is the total separation of the perceiver from the mundane psychology.( Yoga Sutras 4 25)
I think this is directly implied by the Upasika (female lay follower) in the last line of the original excerpt:
“The mind has to use its own mindfulness and discernment to dig everything out of itself, leaving just the mind in and of itself, the body in and of itself, and then keep watch of them. “
This refers to a precision sorting out and separating of:
- The mind
- The body
- (The One) who keeps watch**
**In most Buddhist literature I have read (which is not extensive and is mostly in the Theravada approach) there seems to be a consensus that the one who keeps watch, the knower, is not absolute but is still in the realm of mind and inconstancy. One develops the mind, the watcher, or the knower in order to reach nibbana which lies beyond.
In regards to inSelf Yoga declaring the intellect as an organ and emphasizing the need to locate it and deal with it as such, I will address that in another post.
I'm really just interested in accelerating insight through practice and I hope these discussions help meditators to remove the inherent ignorance which is so difficult to find and which is so natural to our sense of identity.
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In relation to the paragraph below, please see the queries below it:
**In most Buddhist literature I have read (which is not extensive and is mostly in the Theravada approach) there seems to be a consensus that the one who keeps watch, the knower, is not absolute but is still in the realm of mind and inconstancy. One develops the mind, the watcher, or the knower in order to reach nibbana which lies beyond.
Please use some synonyms which give some clarity on what is meant by absolute.
Please clarify if there is some other temporary or permanent reality which is present besides the knower and the mind in the last sentence. This would help because otherwise one is puzzled as to there being a watcher and then something or someone else which keep tab of what occurs.
These are common synonyms of absolute, and there are others:
universal
fixed
independent
nonrelative
nonvariable
absolutist
rigid
established
set
settled
definite
decided
irrevocable
unalterable
unquestionable
authoritative
incontrovertible
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Good questions!!!!This is not spelled out clearly in the literature I have found. In my experience and speculation there is something about "knowing" that seems to be tainted by consciousness or mental activity. I think there's a more pure or more separated knowing and/or knower that is beyond. I'm not there yet and the Buddhists leave this mystery to be unveiled in direct experience.
I can only be a parrot in terms of defining the absolute. These are the Buddhist insights and other terms I am familiar with
- unchanging
- free of suffering, unsatisfactoriness and stress
- no self, substantiality
- deathless
- unconditioned
- unbound
