Metta used the phrase “greed of knowing” yesterday in a comment, and it triggered a long reply from me. When I finished writing, I realized I had produced a summary of Ramana’s method. Because there is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation about Ramana’s method on the Internet, I’ve decided to publish my reply as a post on this page.
Hi Metta,
I think the “greed of knowing,” as you put it, is an extremely useful thing to examine.
Let’s suppose you get this knowledge that you’re greedy for.
Who or what exactly will get it?
When you know something, who or what exactly knows it?
My suggestion is, “Put your attention on that who or what.”
That who or what is you — or seems to be you.
That who or what is not an object so the attention must be used in a different way from usual in order to accomplish this.
The knowledge that results from that use of the attention, is the goal.
You wrote, “The knowing is really in not-knowing.” I would put that a little differently. I’d say, “Our goal is reached by not knowing objects (i.e., not paying attention to objects).” More exactly, by willingly turning our attention away from that which it loves most, experience. (I define “experience” as knowledge of objects, and I use the word “knowledge” in a very broad sense.) To do this willingly and contentedly is vairagya, renunciation and surrender (renunciation of experience, surrender to the Self). But it is not sufficient to turn the attention away from objects. We must turn it toward something else: to me, to that which is paying attention and seeking and hoping to accomplish something. To that which has experience. To that which knows.
That’s the first half of Ramana’s method in a nutshell.
But I’ve made this too complicated. Let’s go back to wanting to know. If you get the knowledge that you want, who or what will know it?
No need to imagine what that event would be like — you’re knowing something right now. Right this instant, you know what these words mean. Who knows it?
That who has or is the power of knowing. What is that power when it’s not knowing an object, i.e., when it’s knowing only itself?
Find that and you’ve found the gate and the goal.
That gate cannot be in anything you learn because it’s the knower of what you learn. The gate is you.
slowly i saw/am seeing
The I who saw and is seeing — regardless of what it has seen and learned and experienced and known, hasn’t it always been the same I? Let’s call it the seer. A suggestion: Forget the seeing and the things seen. Forget the things you’re learned and experienced and known. Disregard experience completely. Catch hold of the seer, of that which learned, of that which has experiences, of that which knows. Catch hold of yourself.
Thank you Freddie. It is indeed a lovely exchange and wonderful to read your note. Let me elaborate a bit more. It was the greed of knowing – or i should say yearning for knowing that brought me to all these writings/books/’apparent answers’. At the time and even now – what the question is, is never apparent but the yearning is. It’s a mistake I’ve made many times in cycling through and giving a label/meaning to the question – which take the form of worldly pursuits. all yearnings are really yearning for god. Yearning for god is also planted by god itself (Which many folks call grace). Ergo, there really isn’t a difference between worldly pursuits and pursuit of god. It is just what god/conditions are apparently in that moment.
This yearning seems to have two flavors – one unravels and deconstructs. the other is like a personality quirk or a habit (a fan still running after the electricity has shut off kind). the one that unravels – is what i’ll call yearning. the one that is quirk/habit – is what i’ll call greed. the one that unravels is to be pursued (or rather, there isn’t any other choice but to pursue) and the one that is a quirk is to just let be without pursuit (this is an apparent choice). It is what the mind-body does. Wanting to know what your experience these days is – is the personality quirk – the unnecessary habit of need to know – which is all conditional/habitual and now appears to be lacking proper fuel/substance for further pursuit.
Yet another flavor to the quirk/greed – appears to be – tasting the water but from different wells. all quench the thirst just fine but there is subtle/sublime enjoyment in flavors of the water – some wells have more mineral-y water, some more earthy etc. This aspect in particular – I like to call NOT greed. This is enjoyment. The same way where sufi music these days sounds like as if those rishis in upanishads were singing.
Hi Metta,
That’s one of the most thoughtful, deepest comments that I can recall on this blog. This is one of those times when I’m amazed that I created a blog that attracts such intelligent, thoughtful readers and commenters.
I think I misunderstood your use of the word “greed” in your earlier comment. Thank you for explaining in more detail.
I don’t know how to reply in a way that does justice to what you wrote so I’ll take it bit by bit.
I jumped to a wrong conclusion about why you chose a pejorative term in the earlier email. But no problem, I think I understand now.
Would you agree that this is unavoidable for a certain type of intelligent seeker? Humans are social animals and our brains are designed to seek information from other humans just like our brains are designed to make us thirsty when blood volume falls. In general it’s a good design for a brain but in this case, if we’re lucky, we eventually realize that the answer to this question can be found in books only in the form of frustrating hints. Past some point, if we keep expecting to find what we’re looking for in books, we’re misleading ourselves — is that close to your main point, or at least related to it?
That’s a very profound and interesting point.
Do you mean that the question is unknown because if we knew it precisely, we would know the answer, which is God?
Only the mind can yearn for God.
I think, in a way, we already know the question and answer. They are always known. The problem is that the mind can’t know them, or can only know a vague intuition of them, and we keep trying to know them with the mind instead of with the immediate faculty that always knows them. The mind isn’t satisfied with that immediate direct knowledge — can barely see it, doesn’t trust it — so despite our best intentions we keep trying to use the mind.
This reminds me of how, over a period of years, the desire for God/truth/reality/liberation emerged in me and took over my life. I’ve written here about how a sort of seed was planted in me in 1985 when I visited a temple in India as a tourist. But I don’t think I’ve written about what I experienced as that seed sprouted and began to grow. The process took years. The earliest intimation I had of it consciously was a sudden fascination with Patrick O’Brian’s novels about the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. I read all 22 of them or whatever the number is. Couldn’t put them down. Then I realized that what mainly appealed to me about these books was an extremely tiny aspect of them — the fact that the ships moved on the wind. Then I started to try to lucidly-dream that I was flying, which appealed to me for the same reason I liked thinking about ships moving on the wind, but in more concentrated form. I didn’t study lucid dreaming, I didn’t read about it, I just started doing it compulsively because I wanted the experience so badly. Then I starting taking flying lessons. I learned to fly airplanes, but that didn’t have the free feeling that I wanted, so I learned to fly gliders, and that didn’t have the feeling either, so I started doing aerobatics (flying in loops and upside down etc.) and that didn’t satisfy me either. Then one day the thought came to me, “I don’t want to fly in the air. I want to fly in consciousness,” which meant to me that I wanted a kind of inner freedom. I went out to bookstores and — I’m back to the first topic in this reply! — bought a ton of books on meditation, spiritual traditions, etc. Within about a year my kundalini became active and I was off to whatever this is.
I agree with this completely and I’ve said this to many people many times, and I’ve probably written it here too.
I’ll have to think about this. The Goddess once told me that the desire for God is unlike other desires because it automatically unravels. I wrote about that conversation here. (Of course to some extent the Goddess was me talking to myself.) I think this is like what you’ve written in some ways, but also unlike what you’ve written to some extent because it implies that not all yearnings are for God but those which are, do always tend to unravel.
Maybe — what do you think of this: the mind’s desires always fall into the second category. The unraveling desires come from a deeper level, one that’s more infused with consciousness, which is God. The unraveling is the recognition that the desire is God. If the desire starts at a shallow level, a mental level, that recognition never happens and the desire stays in the second category?
I wonder if I’m missing something here. It seems to me that the only undesirable thing about this habit is the practical problem that with this question it can’t work. It works fine with other things like learning to bake bread. The only problem I see is that if this isn’t realized, seekers will waste time in unproductive activity and probably never do what they need to do to satisfy their desire. Do you see something more deeply undesirable about it?
As I said earlier, I think the brain is designed to behave this way and in general, I think the design is a good one. To make this more clear, I mean that the brain has been designed this way by natural selection, by the mechanism discovered by Darwin. I don’t think this behavior is primarily due to conditioning or habit. I think it’s innate.
The traditional explanations we’ve inherited from ancient India place emphasis on conditioning and habit but the people who invented those explanations didn’t have the opportunity to read Darwin or books about neuroscience. But we do.
Thanks Freddie. As I’ve told you before – I’ve read ALL of your blogs and most of your writing on realization.org. I have immense gratitude for all of it. It was the path that the yearning chose to traverse and it brought me along for the ride. Here are some further thoughts your note sparked in me:
*Would you agree that this is unavoidable for a certain type of intelligent seeker?*
Yes, perhaps so. It makes me think of a place in Gita where Krishna says to Arjuna that the grace/god will come to you in whichever form you’re accustomed to. So, for some its intense yearning manifested as immersion in books/holy pursuits. For others it is addiction. For yet others it takes the gory form of committing gruesome acts and then meeting the outcomes of those (it’s like Maa Kali then stripping away all that is to be discarded). No matter what one does, its just the same movement towards god. the movement away from god is also movement towards god.
*Do you mean that the question is unknown because if we knew it precisely, we would know the answer, which is God?*
Yeah, its like any meaning/form one gives to the question is dead on arrival. Same sentiment as describing god in negatives/neti. Material pursuits seem far more limited than spiritual pursuits – but eventually, one sees – spiritual pursuits are also limits we’re placing on something that’s limitless.
*Then I realized that what mainly appealed to me about these books was an extremely tiny aspect of them*
I have similar stories. Its like shaving a pencil over and over and deeper truth emerges and the shaving can go infinite but one does it enough number of times to see at the end (un-end) there is just nothing at the core and everything at the core (which is not reachable through shaving). Where material and spiritual begin to coalesce. In my teens I was besotted with sufi music. I didn’t understand the deeper meaning of the words but it stoked intense vibrations in me. I thought (and this is really giving a name/label to the question) I loved sufi music or I loved fusion music and spent a good deal of time collecting instruments, playing, learning – but it left me unsatisfied. The same way – flying physically was unsatisfactory to you (I too lucid dreamt and the flying aspect was most prominent for me. It was the desire to be limitless – just intending the mind towards a place/thought/time – and bingo – you’re there faster than speed of light). The same patterns repeated over and over again in professional life, personal life… everywhere. Until – i stopped giving the yearning a label and a need for an end/answer. It starts on its own and it quenches on its own and it takes us through many scenic routes and that’s the whole pointless point.
*Maybe — what do you think of this: the mind’s desires always fall into the second category. The unraveling desires….*
To me it appears that god is constantly giving signals. Mind (which is also god) is wanting absoluteness and a rest-ful ground. But its a fallacy (that fallacy is also god). Yearning arises and yearning finds its way. mind tries to label it. mind trying to label it is also the same god/yearning/processes. Sometimes, the separation becomes too prominent – mind as separate wanting to know/concretize. And that is okay too. It’s a self-correcting dynamic middle way in motion at all times. Mind can do what it does but there is a base level okay-ness/peace that is always there.
When i said unnecessarily – i didn’t necessarily mean undesirable. One moment the yearning appeared (anticipating tasting another flavor of water). Next moment it encountered an apparent choice in resting back and not pursuing and so it did. It’s all just fine. Moment by moment.
*I don’t think this behavior is primarily due to conditioning or habit. I think it’s innate.*
In my experience conditioning and innate ‘appear’ to be two different and contrasting things but it is only apparently so. What is innate is also conditioned. Darwin, neuroscientists just put a label/meaning onto it. Natural selection is also the right conditions manifesting for that construct to appear. Human life was also conditioned to appear on earth and not on many other planets. There is a starting condition and downstream conditions. it’s all conditions. some conditions appear to be habits/apparently repeating patterns.