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Hi!

If anyone wants to bare with me, I'd like to emphasize the practice of not-knowing. It is essential to deconstructing one's view of the world/certainty.

It's funny how an idea can be with one for a long time and yet one may never truly acquaint oneself with it. For me, I was associated with a nagual that I'd meet with now and then for a period of over a dozen years. One of his concepts was that human beings, as awareness, had the task of making known the unknown - evolution. Part of my efforts were to perceive this unknown as a void, the void: one vast nothing materially, yet all things potentially. But it was many years before I understood what the unknown was/is.

Anyway, as you can see for yourself, the mind can't think about the unknown. All of its material, its inventory, is composed of knowns - knowledge.

People don't normally realise that they can drop knowing anything, and THAT THAT STATE IS THE UNKNOWN.

This is what all the not-doings are for, why it was significant that CC should see a dying animal in a piece of cloth.

Not knowing anything for certain has a magical effect. It bridges the first and second attentions. Think about it - if you don't know anything for certain, how do you know which attention you are in? How do you know you're not dreaming now?
Don't answer! The point is not to answer, but to pause, and lengthen the pause. How do you know this is ordinary? How do you know that you're not already dead and this is the afterlife (check out the movie "The Others" with Nicole Kidman).

The fact is, and it is a fact - if you never question, never investigate what you take for granted, you won't know it's a fact - you can't know anything absolutely. The fact is that there is no difference between the first and second attentions. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true. Awareness isn't divided up, save by minds that divide it for their convenience. This isn't just a logical conclusion. I know what I'm describing. The thing that makes them seem different is your belief - your "knowing" that they're different. If they were actually different, you wouldn't be able to go from one to the other. You don't really "go" anywhere. Everything, all attentions, are right here, right now.

Anyway, practice not-knowing and see for yourself. You can do it right now. Everything you know is merely an agreement to know. Stop agreeing that you know anything. Not always. Just to familiarize yourself with your true nature, so you won't take things so seriously, so definitely.

If you want to access the unknown, it's right here. Just stop knowing anything. You don't know anything anyway. So stop believing that you know something.

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J. Krishnamurti was very wise in pointing out that all knowledge is from the past, stored in the mind, as the mind. And that it has nothing to do with your present experience, being present. You always miss the present because you look at it with your knowledge which you acquired in the past.

The present isn't just now; isn't just any given moment. It is being without knowledge, without concepts.


All knowledge is dead. The present is alive.

Look at it this way:
Any realisation or revelation is valuable only in so far as it is immediate and direct. To then write down your valuable insight, or store it as memory/inventory, so you can remember it or refer to it later, as knowledge, is a completely different doing. The revelation will never apply to another moment. Each moment is its own revelation!

In other words, be present, without concepts, without knowledge, and the mystery will be apparent, and your days will be filled with wonder and adventure.

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Not knowing is the core not-doing.
Being natural, without knowledge/past is the greatest not-doing. Everything you do in this 'state' is a not-doing. Whereas you can contrive many not-doings using your knowledge or following a book which is knowledge, but these won't be true not-doings IMO. For example, I know it is considered a not-doing to put your belt on backwards or brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand, but these are still knowledge - simply doing the opposite of what you usually do. This may throw a wrench in your routines and bring about an opportunity for self-awareness, but it's not a not-doing - it's doing the opposite. A true not-doing, as I saw it today, doesn't come from knowledge; all knowledge is doing, is the mind doing - as long as the mind gets to stay in control, gets to be who you look to for answers, it'll let you practice anything you want - because it's still doing.

Today, as I was drying off from a shower, I dried off in a new way that wasn't my normal routine, and it just happened, naturally - not because I intended to or had a thought about drying differently or not-doing, but because I had no thoughts, because my mind/knowledge/memory wasn't there. And I then saw that that was not-doing: 'I' wasn't doing it. Nor can 'I' ever repeat the way I dried off and call it a not-doing ever again.

I understand this may be different from CC's not-doing and its definition(s), but it is within the context.
Just notice this: anything done without knowledge/mind/thought is a not-doing. Then compare that not-doing with brushing your teeth or putting your belt on backwards... The no-mind state is much more vital and present.

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I was reading Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Voice of Knowledge". In the first chapter he shares his understanding of the Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden story. It's funny how my knowledge of this myth has changed over the years. A christian sees this story as man's first disobedience to God and the resulting punishment and living in sin, the temptation, the guilt, etc. Then there are many systems (gnostic, greek mysteries, serpent cults...) that turn it around and see God as the enslaver and the serpent as the liberator. It seemed odd that God wouldn't want us to have knowledge. He must be an enslaver. But now from a non-dual perspective, which agrees with Don Miguel's view, the serpent is the bad guy once again, the liar... knowledge is lies and limitations. If you eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you WILL die, because seperation is born with knowledge. The mind - the tree of knowledge - loves knowledge, thinks knowledge is the answer to everything. But silence/not-knowing removes the questions, the answers, the problems and solutions... it's all inapplicable. We return to the innocence of the Garden of Eden. We are no longer seperate from God/stillness-silence.