Daily Quote, Sunday March 29, 2009
Good morning everyone,
Looks nice this morning and quite warm again too!
Here is the quote for today.
Self-knowledge is not a result.
To understand the whole process of oneself requires constant alertness, awareness, in the action of relationship. There must be a constant watching of every incident, without choice, without condemnation or acceptance, with a certain sense of dispassion, so that the truth of every incident is revealed. But this self-knowledge is not a result, an end. There is no end to self-knowledge; it is a constant process of understanding, which comes about only when one begins objectively and goes deeper and deeper into the whole problem of daily living - which is the 'you' and the 'me' in relationship.
Collected Works, Vol. VI - 233
This idea is in such great contrast to the traditional idea of self-knowledge offered in the yoga texts, where the attainment of self-knowledge is a once and for all event, though falling off the path is possible of course.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose in the yoga texts and in K too, is to end suffering, but the yoga texts want to step out of time whereas K is working very much within time.
Time in the chronological sense that is. In contrast, the need for constant understanding that K refers to is the result of the psychological notion of time as past, present, and future that thought creates.
The idea that there is no end to selk-knowledge resonates with the idea that truth is a pathless land. Where there is an end there can be a path, so where there is no end there can be no path.