Laws Of Memory : Part 06 : Law Of Unknowability

Tarun Pradhaan

# Laws of Memory Part 06
Welcome to Pure Experiences. This is a series on Laws of the Memory. We'll continue our discussion on the third law: the Law of Unknowability.

## The Law of Unknowability

As the name shows, the law says that everything is fundamentally unknowable. And everything comes, everything: the existence, the memory, the structures in the memory, the patterns, all of our experience, and also the experiencer. We'll never know what these things are.

We discussed this thing previously, in brief. There is a reason we started with imagination, theory, and hypothesis. We can only imagine what is; knowledge of what is, is impossible.

So, we'll try to find an evidence, check if this law is really true or not. Before that, we need to know: what is the meaning of knowing? What is knowledge? How to know something? So, we have already defined knowledge as impressions in the memory, some information that is stored in the memory.

## Knowledge and Experience

But this information, the impressions which we gather from our experiences coming from the limited senses, is not random. It has a structure. So, a logical structure in memory is called knowledge.

Knowledge is different from experience because experience is fundamental. It simply is; it happens. Unless and until whatever is, is limited and perceived through the senses and is impressed on the memory, nothing is known.

What we actually perceive is actually something which is already stored in the memory. Right now, we are not looking at a world out there. We are looking at contents of our memory.

The experiences, they are neatly stored. Neatly means logically, rationally, meaningfully. It is information; it is not random impressions. This is all done by processes in the memory, the mind. It continuously finds meaningful patterns, especially those that are needed for survival, and meaningfully arranges these patterns as information in the memory. This is called knowledge activity.

Knowledge can be updated, removed, deleted, forgotten. The experience continue to happen. So, you can see the difference between experience and knowledge here.

A dog or a cat is also having an experience of your house, probably somewhat different, but still. But their knowledge is completely different from your knowledge. When you look at a book, you immediately recall what it is, what is its use, what is its function. But for a dog, it is just something which can be chewed and torn. For a cat, it is simply a seat to sit on. The knowledge depends on what impressions these experiences leave on the memory.

If they are logical, meaningful, helpful in survival, we call it knowledge. If they are illogical, wrong, and result in some kind of harm, destruction, we call the same impressions ignorance.

The key is logical arrangement, relations between different experiences, or connections between different patterns in the memory. These connections hold the meaning. So, for example, they connect the objects with the qualities, or objects with the use, people with the relations, and so on.

So, now you know what is knowledge, where it is. But anybody will say, that means we can know many things. There is memory, there is experience, there is knowledge activity which is arranging the knowledge with connections among experiences. It is exactly opposite of the law. So, let us examine.

## The Illusion of Knowledge

Recall the definition of truth. That which is changing is not true. So, the experiences keep changing, knowledge keeps changing, it can be logical, illogical, anything, and therefore, the whole knowledge is false.

Secondly, that which is impressed on the memory is a filtered and transformed version of the actual vibration patterns in the universal memory. So, the knowledge is of that which was already transformed and processed by sensesreduced, limited, filtered, formatted. We know that. And obviously, nobody will say that is the final truth. No, that is far from truth. It is all generated on the spot. The knowledge is a fabrication.

There is no doubt that it is useful, otherwise there won't be any activity which generates knowledge. It is useful for survival, but it does not give us the truth. Why is that? There is no hope of knowing anything because of all these issues that I mentioned.

Somebody will say, "But there is something on the other side of the windows of the senses. Outside the window, there is a real world. What are these senses sensing otherwise?"

So, I have a bad news there also. Outside is pure potential. It is a sea of potentialnon-physical, non-mental vibrations, no world. Nothing to see, no knowledge.

"So, do you mean all of my life is totally a lie?" Yes, [laughter] that's what everybody means by this.

"No, I want to know the truth."

No, you cannot. There is no truth.

Recall the first episode when I said all these things. Many people must have laughed very loudly: "Look, he is telling there is no truth. Look, he's telling it is all empty. The whole existence is empty, there is nothing. And now he's telling nothing to know, plus you cannot know anything."

This is the trick of the illusion. The illusion is keeping you in a fabricated world, false world, Maya. And you believe it so much that the truth looks like a lie. Isn't that amazing? Magic!

Find out for yourself. What can you know? What are you knowing? Are you aware of my words? Are you listening to my words? They are also false. You are not knowing anything new through these words. You are clearing whatever was already deposited, the dirt of knowledge in your memory. That's all is happening. Nothing new is going in there. So, the knowledge is clean up.

The real knowledge is actually negative. It cleans up. Those who are on the path of knowledge, they know everything. They know all these things very clearly. It is unbelievable, but yes, reality is stranger than fiction.

First, whatever we want to know is already changing, so not truetheir names and forms. Second, it is coming through the senses. The senses lie all the time. They never tell the truth. Third, that of which the knowledge is, is empty. So, let's invoke the Law of Emptiness, by the way.

## Emptiness and Unknowability

Cannot know the empty. Why? Simply because there is nothing to know in emptiness. You open an empty box and ask a question: "What is in there?"

And the answer is: "It is empty."

"No, no, I want to know what is in there."

"No, there is nothing to know because there is nothing."

"I want to know what is this empty."

"No, you cannot know." [laughter]

If there were something, I could have told you something, I could have shown you. It's nothing. Pure potential and all that is just our imagination, daydream. What are you trying to know?

"So, I am there?"

Yes, you are there. That also cannot be known because that which you are, really, known as the experiencer, is not even an experience. It is the screen. The screen will not become picture on itself. Impossible. If the senses cannot detect it, there is no chance of printing any impression, imprint. So, that will be never knownthe experiencer. That is what you are.

So, in the existence, there are only two categories: experience and the experiencer. Both are unknowable because both are empty. So, the whole of the existence is unknowable. There is the proof.

So, it is not that there is no knowledge. It is there. All of it is false, and all of it is imaginary. The whole of your knowledge is only imagination. That's how we started, actually. So, it is not useless. The only mistake you can make is think of knowledge as something true, absolutely present, absolutely there, unchanging. No. It is pure imagination.

So, in the end, knowledge is ignorance. No amount of knowledge can be called knowledge, it is all ignorance: small knowledge, half knowledge, 1% knowledge, bookish knowledge, intellectual knowledge, direct knowledgeall of that that is simply ignorance. Some of that ignorance is useful, and we assume that it is knowledge. We assume that it is true, and we keep going, we keep living this false life. No issues at all. I don't have any issues.

Just know what it is, which you will never be able to know. So, know only this much that, "I don't know." I know only this much that, "I don't know." This is called agnosticism.

## Contradictions and Infinite Knowledge

Still we have knowledge, so let us ignore that for a while, the absolute things. How much knowledge is possible? Now, the answer should be very simple, very easy. There is infinite potential. There can be infinite amount of patterns. There can be infinite memory because it's all virtual, no limit. Infinite senses, infinite time, and so on. So, infinite knowledge is possible. Why? Because it is made up on the spot. You can make up anything. You can create any amount of knowledge. Or, in other words, accurately, infinite knowledge is possible. It can happen.

What is the implication of that? The knowledge that tomato is red is possible, and equal chances are the knowledge that the tomato is black, that knowledge is also possible, because infinite amount is possible. So, about the same subject, same topic, same object, you can know infinite amount. So, obviously there will be contradictions. Even one sentence will not agree with the other sentence.

One moment you are saying, "Tomato is red, this is my knowledge." The next moment you will say, "The tomato is black. This is my knowledge." All you need to do is turn off the light and turn on a blue light. Instead of white light, look at the tomato in blue light. The whole of the blue light is absorbed, and the tomato looks black.

Which of this knowledge is correct? What is the truth? And infinite knowledge means you will never find the truth. There will be always something opposite or contradictory or meaningless statement can be made. So, there goes our science out of the window. [laughter]

So, that is why masters don't give so much importance to knowledge or truth. They find that the purity is more importantto be pure, to be clear of knowledge, ignorance, and any other concept. At least a master knows that there is nothing to know, holds a little bit of knowledge that is useful, and says that any knowledge is possible, anything can appear. Instead of becoming hard-headed about, "What do I know? I know everything. You don't know anything. These people are stupid."

So, to run our lives and to have good things in our lives, comfortable life, we drop down in ignorance. No problem at all, because anyway you are going to get ignorance. So, we ignore this level where nothing is known. We go down somewhere where something is known. For example, the laws, the memory, the patterns, the layers. This is knowledge. So, we know that this is all imaginary, it is made up, anything can appear, but we assume that this is true. You can call it a lower level of knowledge.

And sometimes we drop even down that we declare all the tomatoes as red. We ignore that they can appear as any color. The color itself is an illusion, imagination. So is a tomato. But still the tomato is somewhat useful, we can eat it. So, we assume it as true. Ignore the ignorance. So, this is multi-level knowledge. That which is practical is known, is stamped as knowledge, it is taken as truth, and we use it.

## Levels of Knowledge

There are many levels of knowledge. For example, you are watching a movie and one actor killed another actor in the movie. What is the truth of the movie at the level of the movie? Yes, this person number one kills the person number two. However, outside the movie, in your room, nobody killed anybody. It never happened. So, that lower level truth is now false here.

Suddenly you wake up in your bed. "Oh, that was a dream! I was watching a movie." You are now in a higher level. Now, the dream itself is false where you were sitting in the room watching that movie. That reminds everybody of Inception, the movie. Anyway, so on. Once you reach the highest, there is no knowledge, there's nothing to know. But all these levels are of some importance, some or the other.

And you must have guessed the sub-law, sub-rule: that something which is true at the lower level of knowledge is false at the higher level. Something which is true at the higher level remains true at the lower level.

So, you were sleeping in the bed and that was true in the context of the dream also. And you were watching the movie in a room, that was true in the context of the movie also, where the pictures were appearing on the screen. But as soon as you go to the higher level, everything probably in the lower level becomes false. Except you can say that there was a dream, and in the dream you can say, "I was watching a movie." That kind of relative truth can be there.

So, how do we decide what is knowledge, what is ignorance, what is true, what is false? We look at the usefulness of it. We look at the usefulness of our imagination. That's all we have. You don't have anything else except imagination. So, if it is useful, we say it is true.

## Power of Knowledge

This much knowledge is a lot of power, because now you can make use of any imagination. Many people are surprised by this, many people are alerted, because this same thing is told in Tantra Bodhi, our Tantra Bodhi program: how to utilize your imagination to use it, because it is all false and the whole life is false. You can create any kind of falseness.

The truth cannot be created, the truth will never change, that is the definition. So, the good news is, even though everything is false, the whole life and whole of the experienceit does not matter life or death or whateveris false, but the good part is, you can change it to make it anything, because it is false. If you are dreaming, if you have the ability, you can change the dream to see anything you want, do anything you want. This is the power.

And if you are shooting a movie, you are creating a movie, you can imagine any story, any any characters, any action there. So, we are creators. It does not matter if we know anything or not. What can we do with this power of creation? That is probably more important for any seeker, for human beings.

So, the bottom line is there is nothing to know here. Still, we are happy with that situation because that opens up the possibility to know anything. Knowing is being, for a human being. What are we? That which we know. If you don't know anything, you are nobody. There is nothing, just vegetable. So, the whole personality, the person, individual, is created as a structure of knowledge. Ultimately it is false, ultimately an illusion. But we don't care, because you will never find anything which is true. There is no truth.

## Rising Above Unknowability

So, how to overpower the Law of Unknowability? How to destroy it and know something? It is impossible! So, we rise above the Law of Unknowability by defining what is useful for us. That is the first thing. And know that, know that certainly, thoroughly. Don't worry about agnosticism and so on, philosophies. They are also imagination. Utilize that knowledge. Utilize that knowledge to get your goals, to reach your goals.

So, a master, fully knowing that anything can appear anytime, anything can disappear also, fully knowing that nothing can be known, utilizes the ability to know and reaches his or her goals, achieves something worthwhile. Still not clinging to the goals, not becoming proud of their knowledge, because they know there's nothing to know, I don't know anything. So, that arrogance never comes in a master, that, "I am a wise man." No wise man will say that, "I am wise." Only a stupid says that, "I am wise." Only a very stupid person says that, "I know everything. Don't tell me, don't teach me." These are symptoms of less intelligent people.

So, a master is untouched by knowledge, ignorance, and self-praise, megalomania, narcissism, whatever you want to call it. And so, the master attains a level of purity which is not seen in ordinary people.

So, that is some practical suggestion. There is a tantric suggestion now, occult: that if nobody knows about what you're doing, you can create anything you want, provided nobody should know about it. Secrecy! If you maintain secrecy, you can create a world of your own that will be as real, as true as this world, or any world that you can imagine.

Because knowledge creates these illusions, knowledge is simply impressions on the memory. What is stopping you from creating any kind of impression on the memory? Nothing! Nothing except your own ignorance: your ignorance that the world is true; "I am this human being; nothing can be changed; I know everything." This ignorance is stopping you. Otherwise, a master is a master creator, an artist who can create anything.

This existence is our playground. The play is happening automatically, nobody is doing it. So, you can jump into the play. See that you are not only the actor, you are also the director. You are the producer-director of this moviemovie of magical experiences, imaginary experiences.

So, you can rise above unknowability by taking advantage of unknowability. Your intention is the key. You can use unknowability as a platform to jump above it. If there are waves in the sea, you don't say that these waves are going to drown me. You say that, "I'll utilize this wave and I'll ride this wave." That's all a master does. The master is not trying to break the laws, it is impossible. The master is riding the waves.

In the unknowability, we add more unknowability. We add a lot of spice in that. You can do anything you want with it now. You are the master of your own universe.

So, contemplate more on unknowability, and we'll continue the series next time with the next law. Thank you for listening to Pure Experiences.

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This article is a formatted transcript of a video in the series of videos on my YouTube channel **Pure Experiences**.
Laws of Memory Video Series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWKBCXU2oaNU

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Laws Of Memory : Part 06 : Law Of Unknowability

Tarun Pradhaan