13 - Knowing and Intuiting
We imagine that we know some things about life, but we intuit the meaning of reality.
* When reading this book for the first time, it is best to read from the beginning without skipping forward. Otherwise, the intended meaning of some words might not be obvious.
Knowing and Intuiting
KNOWING: “Knowing” refers to the inherent certainty of awareness, being, and reality. Knowing is characteristic of being. Being directly knows awareness and reality in the same way that it knows itself. Self-knowing is being that knows itself as being, as reality, and as awareness.
INTUITING: “Intuiting” refers to the expanding of awareness from the narrowly focused content of an experience to the limitless character of awareness itself. It also refers to awareness of the limitless character of being and reality. Intuition unveils the meaning and purpose of unreality.
Intuition is a moment in clear awareness of being and reality.
In reality, being is aware of itself.
What does this mean?
Experience is unreal and illusory, but awareness of experience is real. Intuition reveals the meaning of all experience: why experience appears within awareness, why existence appears within being, and why unreality appears within reality.
There are two basic forms of knowing. There is ‘knowing-what,’ that refers to direct awareness of reality or unreality; and there is ‘knowing-that,’ that refers to the unreal, indirect experience of representing or referring to things by using words, symbols, gestures, and so forth. For example, you know what a particular color of red looks like to you just by looking at it, but you might not know that it resembles some particular shade of orange to which it is sometimes compared.
Intuition is like reality seeing itself reflected in a mirror.
What could be seen with such a mirror?
Experiences arise within awareness. Intuition is awareness of the immediacy of things and knowing what that immediacy truly means. But experiences often overwhelm intuition as we become entranced by the endless spectacle of the universe.
When experience overwhelms intuition, some experiences become habitual.
Awareness knows what experiences are by experiencing them. Awareness intuits self-awareness by being self-aware, such as when awareness is aware of itself or when being knows itself.
Intuition of awareness is self-awareness.
Intuition of being is self-knowledge of being.
Intuition of reality is self-realization.
We can know what an experience is or know that an experience is such and such only in relation to other experiences. Experiences seem real only because real awareness illuminates them. But experiences are not real; they are illusory and ephemeral.
We cannot experience intuition because experience cannot represent intuition. Awareness is real; intuition is awareness that is self-aware of its absolute reality.
Intuition exposes the unreal world of experience and lays it bare, a mere shadow on a wall, an illusion, a fantasy, like a magic trick or a captivating performance.
Many people imagine intuition to be mysterious, but it is not; intuition is always here, patiently waiting until distraction subsides.
We imagine that we know some things about experience.
We intuit reality.
When we understand what awareness is, we also understand what being is and what reality is.
Seek awareness of reality and being.
You are awareness itself.
Ontological Monadology
Here is a puzzle based on the first few parts of Leibniz’s Monadology. This puzzle refers to beings (as in ontology), whereas Leibniz referred to monads (as in simple individuals).
The statements below define a basic framework for the puzzle. Think of it as a possible world-view. For a moment, try to envision your world according to this framework. Imagine you are one of these individual beings among all the others.
Here is the framework:
Imagine that the universe contains individual beings who are aware and perceptive.
Each being is infinitely small, and the universe is completely filled with them.
Beings have no constituent parts or components, and yet no two are identical.
Beings differ according to their perceptions—their feelings, memories, ideas, and so forth.
Some perceive place in order to organize perceptions that occur together.
Some perceive time in order to organize perceptions that do not occur together.
Some perceive number in order to organize perceptions by sequence or quantity.
Some perceive ignorance in order to organize perceptions into loosely-related collections.
Further considerations:
Ignorance refers to the ability to completely ignore some perceptions and to significantly compartmentalize perceptions by ignoring relationships among them.
A being may have a wide variety of perceptions, such as insights, expectations, sensations, desires, representations, dreams, fantasies, and so forth that are not specifically mentioned in the basic framework.
Each being is capable of very complex perceptions and very complex collections of perceptions, including such things as perceptions of other perceptions.
Some beings may perceive confusion, even to the point of overwhelming disorientation or being unconscious of most of their perceptions.
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How do you know where one being ends and another begins?
How many beings are there, really?
What is the universe of all these beings, and where does it exist? (The simplest and most obvious answer.)
How does this relate to knowing and intuiting?
How does this relate to the previous stories?
Remember Being Dreams Forgetting.