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The Search For The Knower
The belief that the self has an untouchable core plays a crucial part in modern psychology, particularly in the setting of psychotherapy.
In therapy, a patient will at best undergo superficial change as long as he confronts only the superficial layers of himself. To break through and accomplish major change, he has to unveil the “central nucleus – that whorl of the self which possesses absolute wisdom and self-knowledge.”
At first, only the therapist realizes that a core of wisdom and self-knowledge exists. The patient himself, under the influence of his mental distress, is alienated from this part of his psyche. Therefore the therapist’s role (I am speaking here of classic “couch therapy”) is to give the patient the courage and freedom to bring his deepest self to light.
In almost every case, the first step is to convince him that the deeper self is real. The patient must be shown and then made to experience that part of his mind which transcends crises, which registers life with crystal clarity even when the conscious mind is reeling in bewilderment and panic. It is not an easy exploration.
Ever since Freud, depth psychology has proceeded on the notion that the knower is buried under layer upon layer of painful experiences. It cannot be confronted directly; therefore it must be tricked out. The patient is thus presented with dreams, slips of the tongue, and free associations that betray what is actually happening under all the layers of disguise.
One of the great cultural differences between East and West is that the quest for the knower, which we undertake as a cure for the disorders like neurosis or depression, is a normal goal of life in the East. In India, finding the knower is considered life’s great adventure.
Adapted from Unconditional Life: Discovering the Power to Fulfill Your Dreams, by Deepak Chopra (A Bantam Book, 1991).
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add your comment »In the quest for the yogic grail the question is always WHO am I. Quietly sitting, watching one's self watch one's self, the awareness dawns. When I first met my spiritual master, not knowing yoga from yogurt, and having found myself in an intense set of serial dreams where by simply forming the correct mental formula I would fly,obsessed by the frequency of them till I was sure that I could do it waking, I asked him if he could teach me to levitate."Sure" he said; "who are you?" Naturally I started telling him all the things that I was engaged in at the moment when he gently interrupted me saying" I didn't ask you what, WHO are you". Thus began my quest and my master Marshall kept me on the central path that allowed no deviation, driving me to the point of madness with that always question. "WHO? is closer to you than your own breath?WHO?" never what. Of course the answer is never verbal because if you can say it it's not it. Yet all living beings are capable of KNOWING the answer which is the source of all existence. After all transient things disappear ,every "thing", what's left is the truth, The SAT=BEING, CHIT= AWARENESS of being, ANANDA=BLISS in that awareness. Since everything, matter and energy constantly transforming into each other, is made of only one universal substance vibrating at different rates we are extant at all vibratory rates to the source, our awareness only governed by our attention. Sat Chit Ananda is the source of all life Knower of all it's being.
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Aren't children instinctly in touch with the knower? At least some who are comforably spontaneous and natural and minimally influenced by all the "can't, should, must, learn from the grown-ups" conditioning. Or am I talking of something else here?
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In India, does the quest for the knower begin at childbirth? If I had heard of this before my children were born I wonder how it would have affected their upbringing. When does the knower form?
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Yes, thank you Deepak. You have such a wonderful way of putting things so that pretty much anybody can understand what you mean. Except those who simply don't want to understand because their agenda is to 'be right' in their own viewpoint.
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Being new to the 2lst century (cyber interaction), I mistakenly wrote my comments on another related article...entitled..."The search for the knower". I would like to interact with everyone...
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I know what you mean, I don't know anything!!
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Seems to me that to know the knower, you must first be willing to admit that you do not know to begin with. Thinking you allready know just makes for, how should I say it, the" long way home".
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Thank you, Deepak.
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