Not-Knowing

Article written for the Dutch magazine 'Inzicht' for the February 2011 edition.

In most societies knowing is given such a high place of authority. Knowing and understanding is believed to help us get ahead in our lives. We are supposed to know all the answers. Knowing or understanding something allows the mind a temporary feeling of relaxation and a sense of security and safety. The unknown is frightening and too unlimited for the mind to comprehend so it keeps filling the gap with concepts and beliefs.  Emptiness and death are taboos. We prefer not to look too closely at death because it is the end of the known. It is the end of resting in the idea that ‘I am someone located in a body and living my life’ and therefore safely limited and located. Recognising that there is no known location and no way to understand this right now, even before the body dies, is mind-blowing but it is reality. 

When I was a child I, innocently, didn’t know. I didn’t know how to be in this world. I didn’t know what things meant. I didn’t know what was good for me or bad for me. I didn’t know what to be afraid of or what to achieve. I didn’t know all the rules of how to behave in polite society. I didn’t know what was taboo or what was ok to mention. Thought was not yet given all the authority to rule. I was wide open space. In that not knowing I was empty – there was only emptiness. There was no idea of who I am or who I should be. Only pure untouched and open innocence. Love and pure wonder without any question of limits or boundaries.

Then like an innocent sponge, I soaked up all the rules and the ‘shoulds’ and ‘shouldn’ts’ from my parents, teachers and society in general. I went to school where I was taught that thinking is the answer to anything and everything. I was bombarded by ideas of how to be, based in the fear of not surviving in this world. This body/mind thing was trained to live in this world in a way that doesn’t cause too much trouble to herself or others. She learnt to survive so that most of these ways of behaving just run on auto-pilot.

While this was useful to a certain extent in order to live in this society without ending up in the gutter or in prison, this also meant that I learnt that life is limited. I began to believe the idea that I am someone located and limited to a body or a certain personality. I began to believe the idea that I am ‘in here’ and the rest of the world is ‘out there’. I learnt that I need to be afraid of the world out there and build up protection mechanisms in order to be in the world. In all the learning to survive there was an emphasis on fear and separation rather than what is always beyond that. I’m not saying that it should have been any other way, or in any way criticizing society, but this is how it seems to be for most people as they grow up.

But somehow in this whole process, there remained a thread of not knowing that was not touched by all the rules and all the ideas. This thread was untouched by all the ideas and beliefs. This not knowing was always noticing everything that was happening. This not knowing was always empty even though life at times was busy and hectic. As this not knowing I have never been the separate individual that thought has imagined. I am and have always been empty timeless being. As this has been recognized and acknowledged more and more as an apparent adult, nothing really has changed. It is only thought that believed that time has passed or that I have done so many things in my life. It is not that I have thrown out all the ideas that I learnt, but that they are seen in their rightful place – as thoughts. I am not saying that thoughts are useless. Thought is a very useful tool in order to live in this world. It plays as if there are limits. It labels and separates objects and tells us that we can not walk through walls (which saves us from bumping our head when we try!). Thought tells us the limits and rules of this play of life – just like knowing the rules for playing Monopoly! We have just taken the game too seriously and believed that we can really own houses on Mayfair or go to jail. Seeing thought for what it really is, is seeing that this whole play of life is a game. None of the limits are ultimately real. No matter what thought says it never means anything really. It only refers to things within the confines of this play of life and can never know what is aware of it all. Ultimately there are no limits. I am still that pure open innocence that I was when I was a child. Nothing has changed. No time has even passed.

I don’t know who to be in the world but find myself saying or doing things. If I try to find myself all I find is emptiness. At the same time it appears that there is someone who lives and interacts in and with the world. I don't know who this person is or is supposed to be. All I do is watch her with curiosity and wonder. What is she doing now? She is limited within the confines of this worldly play of appearances. She has physical sensations and emotions, fears and thoughts. She plays different roles in different situations. She is the main character of this movie. The movie plays and the next thing just happens.

In the movie is the story of the seeker. She searched to find an answer or a way of knowing. In believing that we are seekers, we search and long to find a final solution to all our pain. We long for a resting place for the mind so that it can say ‘Ah, now I’ve got it.’ We search for years in hope that one day something will happen or something will change that deep sense that something is still missing. 'if only I had the perfect partner' or 'if only I had less crazy thoughts or emotions'. But the problem with that is that there is never any permanent solution that will permanently and continuously satisfy us. Any ease or happy state is only temporary and is bound to change. Nothing is permanently known in this play of life. Believing that there is a permanent understanding to be found only causes endless frustration. The nature of thought is to keep trying to make things known and safe, even when it is obvious that that is impossible. Getting the joke of this paradox is what life is all about.

This not knowing is also a sense of uncertainty which is felt physically in the body. Whether it is feeling unsure on your feet as you walk on icy slippery ground or whether you feel unsure about a direction or action you are taking, the body feels the fear of not knowing the outcome. You could slip and fall. You could risk everything and fail. You could embarrass and expose yourself. The body and mind imagine possible scenarios, which are felt physically. In seeing that I really don't know why or how or what will happen, the body can tremble and feel afraid. In not believing thought it is seen that there really is no certainty, and no permanent place or nothing to hold on to to keep me safe, life is freshly and spontaneously happening right now without reason or meaning. This can be very uncomfortable and frightening, but also very much alive. Nothing can protect me. This seems to go against the body’s natural survival tendencies. Even though this uncertainty is the only certainty, the body/mind can never know that. It can continue to tremble and worry. It is like walking around with your skin pulled off - completely exposed. Absolute vulnerability. But the resting place is in knowing that although I am completely touched, at the same time I am not touched at all. It is all happening in what I am. All the usual protection mechanisms in thought are not believed to actually protect ‘me’. I am unprotected innocent freedom. Who I really am does not need protection. Who I am is not separate from everything that thought tries to protect from. You could say this is an absolute trust in life, but it is not based in an idea that life will save me. This is a complete surrender to whatever is. Whether thought does not approve or whether the body trembles in fear, this is what is.

The only thing I know without doubt is that I don’t know. Any kind of knowing in thought is not reliable. You think you know something one day, but then the next day you realize that it has all changed and you think you know something else. You think you know what a person is like and then they surprise you and do something completely different. The nature of thought is to know and to limit and separate the not knowing that is. There is no problem with this if we know that this is life playing out ‘as if’ there are limits. If these limits are believed to be actual real limits that mean something about who I am, then there is identifying with the thought or imaginary limited sense of self rather than who I really am. I am never limited, but the play ‘as if’ there are limitations goes on in me. Seeing it as a play ‘as if’ means that there is always identifying with the only thing that is really known - not knowing.

Knowing in thought is unreliable but there is another kind of knowing – knowing in not knowing. Not knowing is known absolutely. What a paradox! Not known in thought or understanding but known beyond all doubt. An absolute resting in not-knowing and never knowing. Not knowing is the only thing that can ever be truly known. This doesn’t make sense and what a relief that it doesn’t! If it ever did make sense it would be limited to a particular experience or way of behaving or thinking. Throughout the spiritual search we think we are going to arrive at a final goal of real knowing or understanding. What a disappointment to find that it is the opposite! It is in knowing without doubt that there is nothing to know or find. There is no permanent resting place. There is nowhere to stand. There is no one here living a life in time. There is no ‘my’ life or ‘my’ death. Only emptiness doing a wonderful job of pretending to be full of life.

My website is www.not-knowing.com.  But what is not-knowing? People who stumble across my website by mistake may wonder what not-knowing means.  I don't even know what it means! I don't understand what any of this means! I don't know what is going on or who I am. I am completely lost. I don’t rely on what thought says when it labels things that happen. I don't believe in anything concrete. I don't have any faith or any hope. There is nothing and no one I can permanently rely on.  I don't believe in a right or a wrong way of being, behaving, speaking or thinking. I don't know if what I do or say is right, but I do notice that it happens. All I know is this that is happening right now. I don’t own anything personally. I don’t have any of my own answers. Whatever I have, whatever I am, is life itself.

By Unmani Liza Hyde