Tag Archives: Knowingness

“Knowingness … or Not” — A Response *

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Dear Dennis,

Thank you for the 3-part article, “Knowingness … or Not.”

I must say, I was disappointed.

Knowing the thoroughness with which you normally approach a subject, and the attention to detail you bring to a task once you undertake it, I had hoped to see a scholarly critique of “Knowingness”—particularly one supported by shAstric evidence showing where the term falls short, together with possible suggestions for improvement or alternative vocabulary for consideration.

Instead, much of the investigation seems to have gone into tracing the frequency of its occurrence, rather than examining the more fundamental question: whether “Knowingness” is an appropriate rendering of jñAnam in the particular context in which I have used it. Continue reading →

Knowingness – Part 3

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*** Read Part 2 ***

This is the second part of my search to find other users of the word ‘knowingness’, and the final part of the series.

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Knowingness – Part 2

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Usage of ‘knowingness’ in the teaching of Advaita
*** Read Part 1 ***

This is the first part of my search to find other users of the word. I separated the domains of my searches into the following categories: 1) Scriptures (i.e. prasthāna traya and bhāṣhya-s, and very well-known post-Śaṅkara works such as Pañcadaśī), and Traditional teachers such as Dayananda; 2) Ramana and disciples; 3) Nisargadatta and disciples; 4) Direct Path (Atmananda Krishna Menon and disciples); 5) Neo-Vedanta (Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and disciples); 6) Osho and disciples; 7) Neo-Advaita; 8) Miscellaneous (difficult to categorize or clearly not Advaita).

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Knowingness… or Not

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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.

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Consciousness, brahman and mokSha

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The taittirIya Upanishad explains brahman as:

सत्यं ज्ञानमनन्तं ब्रह्म ।  — 2.1.1, taittirIya upa.

[Beingness, Knowingness and Infiniteness is brahman.]

Unending Beingness and Knowingness is the nature of brahman.

There are two endpoints for anything in this world — one is the beginning and the other is the ending. But brahman, The Knowingness, as the Upanishad says is Infinite, without limitations or edges or endpoints. It has neither a beginning (origination) nor an end (culmination).

From a common sense point of view, it may be argued that “Knowingness” cannot exist on Its own in the absence of a knower and something to be known. Can Knowingness ‘be’ in a vacuum? Is Its presence not dependent on a knower who would have been the locus for It? In the usual parlance, knowingness is that which interlinks the ‘knower’ with the ‘known.’ With the two end-members being absent, can ‘Knowingness’ exist on its own independent of the other two? Continue reading →