The 3D Pok
A 3 Day Mini Course in Path of Knowledge
This course is delivered orally in a one to one session from the teacher to the student. The mode is not a lecture, it is a conversation. The actual conversation can happen a bit differently, depending on the understanding of the student, the below text is only a guideline.
Each day there is one topic, which takes about 45 to 60 minutes.
Only a qualified teacher or a student who has finished the Path of Knowledge Program (or even those who are on the Step #7 of the program), are eligible to teach this course.
Intro : The path of knowledge
Path of knowledge is a spiritual path, it is concerned about knowledge, and we destroy ignorance on this path. It is a lifestyle; we live in knowledge here.
Means of Knowledge
How to get knowledge? There are only two means:
- Direct experience
- Logic
Fruits of Path of Knowledge
- Self-realization
- Realization of Oneness
- Realization that all the experience is illusion
- Absolute freedom
- Liberation
- Absolute bliss
- And many more ...
Kinds of knowledge
There are three kinds of knowledge:
- Knowledge of the Self. Who am I?
- Knowledge of the world. Is it true?
- Knowledge of the Oneness. How everything is one?
Day 1 : Knowledge of the Self
Let us try to find out who am I and what is my essence? How can we do this? We can explore anything we know through direct experience and logic, and then we can check whether it is me or not.
Ask yourself following questions one by one, and after answering each one, ask the next question.
Objects
My relation to ‘objects’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic
Where am I right now?
What is in front of me?
Am I looking at the object or is the object looking at me?
Any doubt?
Can I say I am not the object? I am looking at it but it is not looking at me?
If yes then it would be clear that the object cannot be me.
So through my direct experience I can say that what I can look at cannot be me.
Check if any doubt.
Now if we change the object into something else, what will you say?
Will you say that the object changed or will you say that I changed?
If object changed but I did not change then through my direct experience I can say that if it changes it is not me.
Whatever the object was, has changed, however I remain the same.
So we come to two important rules:
- If I can look at it then it is not me.
- If it changes, it is not me.
Any doubt on these two rules? It is very important that these two rules be verified thoroughly.
Now we don’t need to check everything to say it is not me. I can use logic here. No object is me. Anything that I can look at or changes is not me.
Consequence: None of the objects in the world is me. I cannot be found in the objects.
Body
My relation to ‘body’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Now let us look at the body and use our Experience and Logic using the two rules.
Are you looking at the body or is the body looking at you?
Using the rule: If I can experience it then it is not me. If it is changing, it is not me. Body is not me. No part of the body is me because everything is changing. Same logic applies to any part of the body.
Consequence: None of the parts of the body is me or I am not this body.
Feelings
My relation to ‘feelings’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Let us now look at the body I can feel, instead of what I see in the mirror: pain, hunger, sleep, tiredness etc. These are the sensations of the body.
Let us take pain. Are you experiencing the pain or is the pain experiencing you?
Does the pain come and go? Does it change?
Use the two rules and check if pain is me.
If the answer is that I am not the pain using direct experience, then using logic I can say- none of the sensations in the body is me.
Consequence: I am not the sensations. None of the sensations is me.
Emotions
My relation to ‘emotions’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Let us look at my emotions: anger, fear, happiness, suffering.
When I am angry, is the anger experiencing me or I am experiencing anger?
Does anger come and go?
Use the two rules and check if anger is me.
If the answer is that I am not the anger using direct experience, then using logic I can say- none of the emotions is me.
Consequence: I am not the emotions. None of the emotions is me.
Thoughts
My relation to ‘thoughts’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Who am I?
Is my name me or is it a thought?
It is a thought. We call this as the ego. This is also a thought.
Do I experience the thought or the thought experiences me?
Do thoughts come and go? Do they change?
Use the two rules and check if the thought is me. Even the one who says I am this or I am that is not me by logic.
Consequence: I am not the thoughts. None of the thoughts is me.
Desires
My relation to ‘desires’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Am I experiencing the desires or are the desires experiencing me?
Do they come and go?
Use the two rules and check if the desire is me.
Consequence: I am not the desires. None of the desires is me.
Memory
My relation to ‘memory’ in light of Direct Experience and Logic:
Am I experiencing the memory or are the memories experiencing me?
Do they come and go? Is the memory changing. Am I changing when memory is changing? When I forget do I say I am gone or do I say I forgot. Do I remember what I was wearing one year back? Can I say I was not there or would I say I forgot? So even if I forgot, I was there.
What is there in memory? What is my name? Someone gave me the name and I have it in the memory. It is so fast I recall it but it is in memory. Because the memory is not I then I am not my name. It is just a name.
What about education? Where is it?
Memory gone, education gone. My profession is not me. It is also in the memory.
Do I remember my mother, father, husband, son etc. If memory is erased where are the relations?
Will I say I am nobody or will I say I don’t know my relations?
If memory is gone then all relations are gone.
The caste, the religion, nationality…where are they? People keep telling me these things but I am none of this.
Consequence : I am not the memory and none of the contents of the memory can be me.
Gender
Am I a man or a woman? How do I know? Because of my body.
Two kinds of body: male and female. But we have already seen that body is not me.
I was told- women have these kinds of the body. Now nothing is in the memory.
All of those imposed concepts about gender/men-women are gone now.
Beautiful, ugly- all these things are gone. Nothing is there.
Is there anything, which is left, which I can say is me? Whatever I thought is me is all part of the memory. And using the two rules I find that none of the memories is me. Which logically leads me to know that none of the experiences is me. All experiences are stored in memory and if memory is not me then whatever can be experienced cannot be me either.
Consequence: I am not an experience. None of the experiences is me.
The Experiencer
Now ask the question- If I am not the objects of the world, not the body, not the sensations, not the emotions, not the thoughts, not the desires, not the memory and not the experiences; am I still there?
If there is nothing at all, who is watching all the experiences?
I am still there. I am watching everything. I am the Experiencer. I am the witness. It knows by ‘being’, not by knowing. Can I say it is not me?
Form
Let us now enquire into the witness. Do I experience any shape, form, color, material, substance?
If there was a form my eyes would catch it. Even if there is something it is not me. It is still there. But there is nothing there. There is nothing in the witness. Experience says there is nothing to look at it. It has no color, shape, form, substance but it is still there. But still there is nothing there.
Is there is any volume, energy, state, electricity, atomic stuff? These things can either be seen/experienced or changed. Nothing can be experienced in the witness. Is it changing?
Consequence: I am formless.
Change
Because as soon as there is a change we can see it, and rule number two – if it changes it is not me. Even by common sense we can say that rules are right.
Whatever changes is impermanent and whatever does not change is permanent.
Consequence: I am changeless.
Birth
When was I born?
Birth is giving birth to a baby. It was the birth of a body and now the body is gone, it is not me anymore. A body was born and I was told that I was born. Birth is a process of change so my birth is impossible.
No certificate can tell me when the witness was born. Birth involves change. But I am not changing.
When a baby is born there is a change. Baby comes out of the womb. There is a change; it grows. Birth is a process of change.
Am I changing?
So it is impossible for me to be born.
Consequence: I am unborn, I am birthless.
Age and Death
Am I ageing?
If I was not born can I age?
If something is born will it die?
Trees are born and they die, dirt goes back to dirt. Human beings are born and they die. Objects are constructed, assembled and disassembled. Nothing remains. Anything that is born is destined to die. Death is also change, one form into another form.
Was I born?
If I was not born then can I die?
I was never born, I cannot die. Death is also one thing changing into another form.
Consequence: I am ageless and deathless.
Birthless, deathless, ageless, formless, shapeless, changeless, nothing, empty. This is my Being, this is who I am.
Liberation and Rebirth
If something is not taking birth and not dying then is rebirth possible?
I was never born, I will never die and I will never be reborn. No rebirth for me.
What is liberation traditionally?
Is it possible for me to be born again?
Here is my liberation.
What is freedom: Not bound by anything. Is there anything, which is binding the witness?
Do I need to eat, sleep, rest? Can anybody put me in jail? Examining like this and I find that there is no bondage and there are no limits. There is no limit at all in me.
Consequence: I am liberated, free, boundless and limitless.
Peace and Bliss
When there is no binding, am I not at peace? Is there anything that disturbs this peace? Nothing really happens there.
Consequence: I am eternally peaceful and blissful. It never goes away.
Love
If I ask all the questions that you asked, what will I say I am?
Is there any difference between you and me now?
Whatever you are I am. There is no difference between you and me.
Two waves in the ocean-one says it is water and the other says it is water. Are they same or different?
Forms can be different which is not me, but what remains- the essence. When there is no form, you and I become One. So you are me and I am you. Can there be bigger relation? Can there be anymore closeness than this? When two become one it is love. There is no separation. We are really One Soul One witness.
This is Self Realization.
Day 2 : Knowledge of the World/Illusion
We will again use tools of ‘direct experience’ and ‘logic’ to see that all that we experience is an illusion. Or we say it is false; none of it is true.
Direct Experience
Ask yourself following questions one by one, and after answering each one, ask the next question.
Where am I now?
What is in front of me? Name the object.
Let us look at this object only. Am I looking at the object or am I experiencing the object directly or am I experiencing whatever my eyes are seeing about this object?
You will see that you are only experiencing whatever your eyes are seeing about this object.
Is there any doubt about it?
Now, let us say there is a red tomato before you.
What is the color of the tomato?
You are likely to say red.
If we shine blue light on this tomato what will be the color of the tomato?
It will be black. Tomato appears red because it takes the white light, absorbs everything and reflects red light. If we remove white light from it, it absorbs all the light and appears as black.
What is the ‘actual color’ of the tomato?
If one says I take the color only when it is under white light then the color of the tomato will be taken as red.
Somebody can say I will take the actual color as when orange light is there; not white, not blue.
If there are different people choosing to see tomato under different lights then what is the actual color of the tomato?
There is no actual color.
Many people agree that it is red. Let us say that instead of Sun being white it has blue light then everyone would agree that tomato is black. That becomes reality.
We experience whatever our eyes are telling us is the shape and color. The actual is never seen, nobody knows. So we see there is no actual color, it is arbitrary.
If there is a person who has an issue in the eyes because of which he sees two. And he will say there are two tomatoes. Are there two tomatoes?
If everybody has defect in their eyes how many tomatoes will be seen? Two. Truth is just an agreement.
There are people who cannot see traffic lights. They never see those colors. For a blind person there is no moon and no stars. The world appears because of senses. Different creatures have different senses. Some creatures have better senses than us.
Let us say your touch is also distorted and whenever you touch something it appears as two. Now there will be no doubt in the mind that there are two tomatoes.
Illusion of the tomatoes is produced by senses. Senses tell us what is there. Actually we don’t know what is there.
When there is fever, whatever we eat is tasteless. There is no taste in the objects. It is the tongue that tells us what is the taste. We cannot taste them.
Let us take one more example- we take three cups of water. One is boiling hot, the other is ice cold and the middle one is room temperature.
You dip your hand in boiling water and then you dip in middle bowl, your hand will sense it as cold. Then you dip in ice cold and then again dip it in the middle bowl and your hand will sense it as warm. Is the water in the middle bowl hot or cold? It is hot compared to third bowl, but cold compared to first bowl.
It is relative. Senses are making it up. There is no hot or cold.
Let us take one more example- if you throw a stale piece of bread to a hungry beggar who hasn’t eaten for last 3 days what will his reaction be? If you give him ten rupees he will feel very happy. If you now throw the same bread to a millionaire how will he feel? Angry and insulted. How is it possible that objects remain the same yet give one person happiness and other person suffering? It is totally subjective.
There is no happiness and no suffering. If it is there it is not dependent on anything. It is an illusion.
This was direct experience. Let us look at the logic.
Logic
If I say my name is XYZ then what is my name?
If I say one day my name is ABC, second day DEF, third day GHI- then what is my name? There is no actual name because it keeps on changing.
You go to buy an object and the shopkeeper says it is 50 bucks, second day he says 70 bucks and then third day for the same object he says 90 bucks; keeps changing the cost everyday, what is the cost? There is no actual cost because it keeps on changing.
I go to buy property and when I talk to person he gives me certain details. Then I ask for papers and when I look at them the details are different than what he told. Will I buy the property? No because it changed.
I meet a person and he is a good fellow but a month I discover changes, he lies, he manipulates, he says bad things, now no trust. We say he is not genuine. Will I trust him? No because he is changing.
Common way of finding what is true or false is to check if it changes or not.
When I look at the sea, I see waves in the sea. Can I take the waves with me and leave the sea? Which one is changing- wave or water? Because waves do not have an independent existence they cannot be real. They are the shape of water, it is a concept in the mind. We have named occurrence of water as wave. Form is changing, not the water.
Let us take example of clay pot and clay? Can I take the clay pot without taking the clay? What is changing here, the shape or the clay? What is changing? Pot is changing, not the clay.
Let us take example of jewellery and gold. Jewellery can take any form but we cannot have jewellery without gold. The form is changing, not the essence. Essence is not changing.
On the Path of Knowledge we say that if something changed, it is non-existent, it is non-essential, it is just an idea. Essence is that which is not changing, it is always considered as truth.
Now let us look at our experience. Is there anything in your experience that is changing?
All the things are changing. So everything is false. It is an illusion. Nothing is real, it is changing, and therefore it is false.
Is there anything in the experience that is not changing?
There is only one thing that is not changing. That is you.
The senses are experiencing something but we don’t know what it is. When we are sensing why we see them as real is because everyone is seeing the same thing. Those who do not see the same thing we say something is wrong with their senses, not ours.
Let us say an artist sees a painting, he sees something there, and however, a villager will only see random paint. Is the painting beautiful or ugly? Totally mind created. Depends on the person who is viewing. It is an illusion.
Impermanence
Let us take another example of tomato. If we take a tomato and keep it on the table for 5 days, what will happen?
Now let us keep everything same as it is, the senses as it is, laws of the world as it is, even keep the mind as it is, and let us speed up the time, like how we fast-forward a video. Now let us say tomato rots in 5 hours and it is now gone. What are you going to say about the tomato, is it real?
Now let us speed up time more and now it rots in 5 minutes. Is it real tomato?
Now let us speed up time and it rots in 5 seconds. You put the tomato and pick up the knife to cut, it disappears in 5 seconds. What are you going to think about the tomato? You might think you were dreaming probably. There may be doubt if you actually had a tomato.
Now speed up the time even more and it goes in a blip. Is there a tomato?
You can speed up even more beyond the range of eyes. Even before you notice it, it is gone.
By speeding up the time, what was real and useful is completely useless. If it changes too fast nothing is there. It is only change. Isn’t everything like this? Only that which lasts for a while, there is a memory of it.
Tomato remains in the memory for 5 days so it is useful for survival so it is real. Everything is like this, when we speed up the time it becomes like a dream. We can see how fast a dream is and how useless. We say everything was unreal and false and meaningless. If everything starts changing relative to you, then you see it as a dream.
Let us take another example. One day you go out and see a beautiful garden. Next day you instead see ruins, and a desert as of 100 years have passed. Next day you wake up you see a mountain. Another 100 years have passed. Are you going to believe it?
Isn’t everything happening already like this, but only slowly. Because things move slowly they seem real.
Same things happen with thoughts and emotions. Emotions change so fast, thoughts change even more. We treat them as real because they repeat. Every experience is like this. There is a memory of the experience so it seems real. There is consistency of the illusion.
So if you are angry everyday it is real. But if you experience anger only once in your life, you will not know that it is there. Because it is repeating we assume it is real. If it stops repeating it is not real. Memory is just repetition and therefore appears as real. Sometimes it is useful for survival; love is useful, anger is useful and so on. Fulfillment of desires come and goes.
Criteria for truth are thus arbitrary and subjective. Anybody can make any criteria.
If 20 people see tomato and everyone says it is red, round and tasty, it becomes real. Same tomato is seen by 20 people in the dream, when you wake up was it true? Criteria were true only in dream. Is there a tomato? This experience is also an illusion. Everyone says this is true. This dream is created by senses and memory. When you wake up is it true? It is also not really there.
Memory
One can say that there is memory and it seems real. Is there a tomato in memory? Can you eat it? Is it real then? It is a shadow in the memory. Nothing in your memory is real. Your whole life is a shadow. There is no person, no life. Totally fake. Nothing can be done of this memory. You may say I am so and so, son/daughter of this, I have done so much, belong to this great country, superior race; it is all stuffed in the memory, which is shadow. Memory is not real. Nothing is real, it is useful for survival. If you don’t need for survival, throw it. You don’t need to survive, body needs to survive. But body is not me.
You don’t need the memory at all, you don’t need the world, body needs the world. You let it happen because you cannot throw it away too.
We live in illusion, but we believe it is true so we live in ignorance. When we live in awareness we live as that which is the truth, this is knowledge. We live in awareness of what is truth and what is not.
This is the knowledge of the illusion, knowledge of the Maya.
Everything is illusion except YOU.
Day 3 : Knowledge of Oneness
Here we will explore:
- How everything is One?
- How there are not two?
- Why existence is non-dual?
Existence
Let us define Existence first. Existence is all that is. What all is there? Wherever you go and whatever you see, there is an experience and there is an experiencer. They are always together. They are the fundamental and these two are the Existence. We see they are One and we call them the Existence.
Have you seen anything other than the experience and the experiencer? As soon as you say something is out there in the Existence you will need to experience it. You will need evidence, and evidence will always be an experience. If you say no it cannot be experienced then it is the Experiencer. It is always like this. So essentially it is like this that experience is the illusion and experiencer is the truth or the essence.
So if the existence is experience and the experiencer, what is essence of the Existence? What is existence truly? It is the experience and the experiencer. And experiencer is obviously me. So the essence of the Existence is me.
I am the whole Existence.
Is there any doubt?
Always Together
Let us take another look and explore more evidences.
Have you seen the experience happening without the experiencer?
Is there an experiencer without the experience?
These two are always together. Why? If something is always together, we cannot see them separately then we say they are One. Like pot is never seen without clay, ornament is never seen without gold, and wave is never seen without water. In gold changing aspect is the ornament, in clay changing aspect is the pot, in water changing aspect is the wave. In the experience and the experiencer, the changing is the experience, and the unchanging is the experiencer, and they are One. So everything is a form taken by me. That is why no form is seen without me. Mind divides the experience and the experiencer. But mind is itself an experience. So it is an illusion and illusion is saying they are two.
Separation
Let us find evidence for the ‘two.’ Is there any separation between the experience and the experiencer? So we come to the direct experience.
Ask yourself following questions in the given sequence.
Where are you?
What is in front of you?
How far away is the object from the experiencer?
Try to measure using a tape or scale. The distance should not be from body, but you the experiencer. Mind says object is out there. Mind is calling the body as me, it will always do that. It will never say it is not me.
Wherever there is the experiencer, there is the experience. They are always here and now. Rest is cooked up by the mind. When the object is where you are, then the whole world is where you are. Illusion is being produced by the senses, there is nothing out there. Whatever the senses are telling is mental. I cannot see your experience, you cannot see my experience. So we say everything is within me, it is poetry. Nothing is separate from me. It is all in me. I am the Existence and everything is in me. This is the direct observation.
Let us take one more example.
Does the experience happen first and experiencer comes later?
Does experiencer come first and experience happens later?
They are together in space and time. There cannot be any separation. Only these two concepts seem separating in nature but they cannot be separated. Experiences are changing, they are different, but not separate. Waves are changing but are they separate from the water? Clay changes shape but is there separation between the pot and the clay? Differences are detected by mind and it says they are two.
Boundary
There is one more way to find out where everything is.
Where is the boundary between object and me?
If it is outside then where is the boundary where experiencer starts and where experience ends. Where experiencer ends and experience starts? With indoctrination we see things outside the body, but where is the body? Will say outside the mind. But then where is mind? Some people will say it is outside me. It is not me. Where is the boundary between mind and me? You can say object is outside, what can you say about the thoughts?
Actually there is no boundary. Ignorance creates illusion. The experience and the experiencer are One, two aspects of the same, and that is Me the whole Existence.
Who are the other people? They will also say the same things. So will there need to be many Experiencers and many Existences? That cannot be. There is only One Experiencer experiencing through infinite experiences. What is Experiencer made up of? Nothing, emptiness. What is Existence made up of? Emptiness. It is nothing almost but we always see experience and experiencer. Existence is emptiness, which is witnessing itself in many forms. This is the knowledge of Oneness, non-dual.
Nonduality
How can one experience Oneness?
Oneness is not an experience. As soon as there is an experience there is the experiencer. It is just being. Being what is- is Oneness. You are that right now. Mind will divide it but you can use the mind to see there is no division. It is the nature of mind to divide and intellect can see through it and say they are not two. That is why we say not two. We say Non-dual, Advaita. So we say it is experiencing. Only experiencing. Your state is of Experiencing right now. It is the non-dual state. It is the only state possible. It is the state of the Existence.
It is possible to be in this Experiencing by detachment. Simply sit and notice in a very detached way and spread your attention on body, thoughts, desires and the sense of I am, and bring everything under your attention, and you will see only experiencing. This is Samadhi. We are always in Samadhi but mental activity hides it. Everything is thrown behind the waking state but if we pay attention we find it is all empty. There is no me, no I. This is being empty, being One, being the whole Existence. Everything is appearing like dream in front of the Existence. If you need to be in Samadhi it is right here.
You are one nondual existence, experiencing itself as an illusory dream.
End of seeking, end of spirituality, end of knowledge.