How we all come to know things

As human beings, we are raised in a fairly common fashion by our families, our communities, our institutions, our cultures.

At an early age, we learn to use the symbols we call language to name our parents, siblings, and objects we find around us or in picture books. Our ability to do this brings shrieks of delight from others. We are told we are smart!

We agree that a certain object should be called a chair and another a wheelbarrow because we are told to label them as such. We are also told what they are used for. We make these agreements just as our parents did with their parents. We don’t come to know these things on our own. Our knowing of the physical world is completely conditioned. 

As we grow a little older, we learn from our parents and teachers how to label different felt states “emotions.” When a characteristic energy vibration moves through our body and we express a certain feeling outwardly, we are told it’s sadness. When we feel a different energy vibration and express this outwardly, we are told it’s anger, and so on. We are then told some of our emotions are okay to express, while others aren’t. In other words, our emotional states are also completely conditioned.

We never come to experience our own inner feelings without feeling the need to label them as other people have instructed us to label them. 

Continuing in this vein, it’s easy to see that our beliefs are also conditioned. Although they change over time, they do so according to further conditioning. What we believed at twenty is often quite different from what we believe at seventy-five. 

Morality is also conditioned because it changes over time and from culture to culture.

What we learn from the world, the world has just passed on from its conditioned state. When this is our only form of knowing, we know nothing on our own. We don’t know what’s true for ourselves.

In contrast, that which is true doesn’t change, and it comes from within. It's something we know for ourselves.

The limitation of knowing only through thought

By their very nature, thoughts distort perception because not all thoughts are connected to the whole. They are isolated bits of information.

Though thoughts appear to originate in the moment, they are conditioned by our past. This is because thoughts grow out of memories.

When we think, though we imagine we are thinking new thoughts, most of the time these “new” thoughts are nothing more than a rearrangement of the memories stored in our brain. We select memories and arrange them in a way that makes sense to us—in a way that appears logical.

Our mind cannot come up with anything that’s truly original unless this insight has been triggered by and flows from a felt inner awareness. 

In fact, the thinking mind often can’t even clearly perceive what’s happening in the present because it sees through windows tainted by the past. This is why all innovation and true progress is born out of the womb of the present moment. We may believe the thinking mind has come up with new ideas, but the mind is just the recipient of and channel through which these new insights are expressed.

Opportunity for Self-inquiry and Sharing:

A. When was the last time you had an original idea?

B. What were the circumstances surrounding this new awareness?

What can the “outer knower” offer us of value?

We are conditioned from birth to look outside of ourselves to others for answers. This is one of the blocks to receiving guidance from our “inner knower.”

In our world, we tend to lionize individuals: politicians, actors, sports and entertainment figures, and so on. We see them as  “special” in some way, so look to them for answers that we imagine may make us “special” also. 

Any celebrity can only share their own reality, their own experiences, their own truth. However, this is predominately, if not totally, conditioned. Yet few celebrities tell their supporters or fans to turn their attention away from them and put it back on themselves. They rarely tell us they truly don’t have the answers we seek from them.

A true spiritual teacher does exactly the oppose of putting the attention on themselves. “Don’t look at me,” says the true teacher. “Don’t adulate me. See the magnificence in your own essence. Know that you already know what I’m sharing with you.”

When another tells us something about ourselves, this isn’t the same as self-awareness. Unless our own consciousness grasps the truth of the insight, it doesn’t have the power to transform us. Others may point the way or mirror something back to us about ourselves, but only to the degree that what someone shares ignites our own inner knowing does it liberate us from our conditioning. 

It’s by looking inside ourselves that we find truth. Here alone will we find the causative dimension of our experiences. Perfect guidance must come from the perfection we find within our true self.

Opportunity for Self-inquiry and Sharing:

A. Have you ever had the experience of meeting a teacher who told you what to think and the right way to do something?

B. If so, did this bring about real and lasting change in you?