I apologize for the length of this. I had intended a single post but, at over 4600 words, it is clearly much too long, so it will now be in three parts. (My target length is 1500 words per post.) Please postpone comments until the end, except for Ramesam to confirm or deny that my AI-assisted summary of his understanding is essentially correct).
In his series ‘Quintessence of 10 Upanishads’, Ramesam has used the word ‘knowingness’ quite a few times. For example, in Part 27 (Taittirīya Part 2), it occurs 11 times and, in Part 30 (Aitareya Part 1), 25 times!
On 5th Aug, I made the following comment on Part 3 of the Aitareya series (https://www.advaita-vision.org/quintessence-of-10-upanishads-32-aita-3/):
I also see that you have used the word ‘knowingness’ again. When I read your first post, on Aitareya, I began my search to find our previous discussions about this (to me meaningless) word. Unfortunately, I could not immediately locate it and have embarked upon a long process of building a local AI to help me to track it down. As soon as I do so, I will aim to generate a separate post to talk about it.
Looking through again now, I see that there is a note in the middle of Part 27 in which Ramesam explains the usage:
The Sanskrit word jñāna is often translated as “knowledge” or “awareness.” I prefer the term Knowingness because the English word knowledge usually refers to accumulated information or understanding gained through experience or study. In Vedānta, however, jñāna does not denote stored information but the fundamental capacity “to know,” analogous to the sensing ability of a sensor rather than the data it records. This distinction is central to Advaita.
In fact, the word jñāna does not occur on its own at all in the Aitareya Upanishad as far as I can determine. It occurs in verses 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 in conjunct form, with the latter containing the mahāvākya ‘prajñānam brahma’. 3.1.2 contains saṃjñānam, ajñānam, vijñānam and prajñānam. And that is it. Very simplistically, these two verses are saying that all the faculties of man are Consciousness, and Consciousness is Brahman. Read Ramesam’s posts for a detailed analysis.
Anyway, I did not forget that promise and, for the past 5 weeks or so, I have been attempting to build a local LLM AI to help me search, analyze, summarize and construct a detailed account of the use of this word. I enlisted ChatGPT to build this but, after over 4 weeks of trying and rejecting various models, I finally gave up. I think that approach requires at least another 6 months of model improvement before there exists something that is viable (on my 5-year old Windows 10 system at least). At present, it requires too much technical knowledge about AI systems and all their parts and capabilities, and too much hands-on work to set them up and get them working together. It really is a nightmare!
But I didn’t forget the reason for that pursuit. I abandoned the AI assisted route and replaced it by the laborious, manual one! What I wanted to do initially was to confirm my belief that the word ‘knowingness’ does not occur anywhere in traditional teaching and is confined to the world of neo-Advaita and the like.
But before I go through what I have found concerning the use of the word in all branches of the teaching of Advaita, I will provide a summary of what I believe to be our respective understanding of the situation. I used AI to summarize the discussions that we had off-line following the use of the term in Ramesam’s ‘Sādhana in Advaita’ series.
Discussion between Dennis and Ramesam
Your discussion took place primarily in May 2019 and December 2019 (during the editing of Ramesam’s article “sAdhana in Advaita”). Ramesam advocated for using “knowingness” as a dynamic pointer, while you defended the traditional use of “Consciousness”.
Ramesam’s Views on “Knowingness”
Ramesam strongly advocates for the term “knowingness” over “Consciousness”. His perspective is built on several key arguments:
- Avoiding Objectification: Ramesam argues that “Consciousness,” when used as a noun, inadvertently objectifies Brahman. He believes translating the Sanskrit cit or jñāna as a gerund (like “knowingness” or “experiencing”) is grammatically and philosophically superior because it emphasizes active, non-dual presence rather than a static entity.
- The Identity of Knowing and Experiencing: He asserts that there is no “experiencing” without “knowing,” and no “knowing” without “experiencing”. Since knowing is our intrinsic nature, we are knowingness itself.
- The Non-Duality of Seer and Seen: According to Ramesam, the world is not completely non-existent; rather, it “IS” as experiencing or knowing. What does not exist is the fragmented, objective form (names and forms). Because “I” am knowingness and the world is knowingness, there is ultimately no division between the seer and the seen.
- The Shadow Metaphor: To explain how the world is resolved into knowingness, Ramesam uses the analogy of a shadow. If you walk in the sun and look at your shadow while forgetting your body, you are confused by it; but if you look at it while remaining aware of your body, you know the shadow is not separate from you. Likewise, if we perceive the world with the constant awareness that our true nature is knowingness, we find only knowingness in the world.
Your (Dennis’s) Views on “Knowingness” and “Consciousness”
You raise several objections to Ramesam’s use of “knowingness,” preferring to stick to traditional terminology and metaphors:
- The “Neo-Advaita” Ring: You express reservations about the term, noting that you have not encountered “knowingness” in traditional Advaita scriptures. You suggest that such phrasing has the ring of modern “neo-teachers” rather than the traditional sampradāya.
- Inert Objects Do Not Reflect Consciousness: You disagree with any model suggesting that inert objects “experience” or “reflect” consciousness. You maintain that while all objects are ultimately Consciousness in their essence, inert things do not reflect or experience it. Furthermore, you emphasize that Consciousness does not “do” anything, including “impelling” the world.
Defense of Traditional Metaphors: You defend the traditional pratibimba (reflection) theory. You point out that the concept of “reflected consciousness”—where the Atman reflects in the intellect to create the “I” that operates in vyavahāra—is a highly useful metaphor with scriptural roots in texts like the Vivekachudamani. You argue it is safer to stick with established metaphors that seekers can easily grasp without confusing the absolute (paramārtha) and empirical (vyavahāra) levels.
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Basically, my objection is that the word itself, apart from not being common-use English, has no clear meaning in this context. This is not because Ramesam is not using the word correctly but because its usage in that way is so unfamiliar. (I confess that I did not initially realize that it was essentially correct, because I had never come across its being used in that way!) Here is my analysis:
The root word is the verb ‘to know’. This is normally used in a transitive sense – being familiar with, recognizing etc.; but can be used intransitively – ‘possessing’ knowledge. If you add ‘-ing’ to a verb, you can use that as a noun (when it is called a ‘gerund’); example ‘I do not like swimming’. But, in order to add ‘-ness’ to a word, the word has to be an adjective.
So in this situation, we start out with ‘knowing’, which means ‘shrewd’ or ‘possessing information that others do not have’. Adding ‘-ness’ to this converts the adjective into an abstract noun. So it has to mean something like ‘the quality of being shrewd, astute etc.’ or ‘the state of having secret knowledge of a situation’.
And I now see that this latter understanding is that intended by Ramesam. (I am assuming that he will correct me if I am wrong!) The use of ‘jñāna’ in Advaita effectively means just that – having knowledge/understanding of the ‘secret knowledge’ of the truth about ourselves and the world, namely the realization that ‘all this is Brahman’ and ‘I am That’. Notwithstanding this, I still maintain that its use is not helpful. And this is why:
Over the years, I have had quite a few complaints from readers about my use of Sanskrit terms in my books. Here is a 1* review that someone posted on Amazon for ‘A-U-M: Awakening to Reality’:
I so much wanted to read this book! Dennis Waite is, in my opinion, a brilliant man with an urgent message. In this book, however, he constantly writes using Sanskrit words. I’ve seen authors do this before, and it’s irritating and distracting! Their excuse is generally that “it’s a unique word with a unique meaning that has no equivalent in English”. That is B.S. No word or concept exists that cannot be translated into another language. Were Dennis Waite to use an occasional Sanskrit term I could deal with it, but he uses them copiously. If I wanted to learn Sanskrit, I would hire a linguist. I really want to get the ideas put forth in this book, but the distraction of these constant foreign words causes me to lose the main ideas every time. If this book is ever re-published in plain English, I will be the first to snap it up. Dennis Waite is brilliant and awesome, but he needs to recognize that not everybody wants to learn Sanskrit.
And of course I have some sympathy for such an attitude. BUT!
It is true that we can explain the meaning of a word, even a word such as ‘mithyā’, which has no straight equivalent in English. But the point is that, if the reader tries reading other books on Advaita – certainly any by a traditional teacher or the scriptures themselves – he is going to encounter the word ‘mithyā’ and not whatever longe explanation you happen to have used in your own writing to explain it. If you want to read others, in order to find different explanations or viewpoints, so that you can improve your own understanding and eventually ‘get it’, you have to understand the word ‘mithyā’ itself.
Accordingly, I suggest that inventing your own terminology is never helpful because it completely prevents this method of reinforcing your understanding. You are never going to really understand what ‘knowingness’ means because no one else uses the term! Everyone (apart from Ramesam 😉 ) uses the word jñāna (or whatever) and THAT is the word that you have to learn to understand.
The remaining parts of this post will provide evidence that the term is effectively not used by anyone other than Ramesam himself.
*** End of Part 1 ***