There is a phenomenon called “leaving the stream of the known.” It means spontaneously ending consciousness as we know it. When it happens, one enters an immeasurable spaciousness of true freedom.
By definition, it’s impossible to define the known, though everyone knows it exists. The scientific project’s core mission is to continuously expand knowledge into the known.
The core intent of a human being on the other hand is to step out of the known as knowledge and experience, and grow through direct contact with the inviolability of the known.
So science and the inward life move in two different directions – – the accumulation of knowledge, and the negation of experience. There’s no conflict between the two because each movement has its place, though the movement of negation is first.
Why? Because the known of human history and personal experience has become so contaminated and corrupted that leaving the dead consciousness of man, even if only for a few moments a day, has become essential for mental, emotional and spiritual survival.
The Earth is dying, and humanity is dying in direct proportion. But just as the Earth evolved the human brain and “higher thought,“ the brain has a latent potential to awaken intelligence and leave the old consciousness, and live in harmony with nature and each other.
The Earth is insisting on this radical change with increasing intensity. And the planet will recover iis equilibrium and diversity when human consciousness radically changes.
We seek security through the known, even though there is inherently no security, even in scientific knowledge, much less through accumulating experience. Though scientific knowledge is a good thing, it’s always incomplete, and seeking security in the known of the past is breeding more and more insecurity.
Curiosity is the urge to understand, not the urge to know. People who come from “I know,” whether politicians or gurus, lack the most important character trait of a human being – – humility.
So why are we afraid to leave the stream of the known, the darkening shadow of the past? Most people don’t see that there is an infinite dimension beyond the known. But it goes beyond that, since short of illumination, even those who’ve left the stream of the known revert to it.
When awareness is strong enough, memory, recognition and time cease. If the state is really intense, even functional memory temporarily stops operating, and one is literally unable to move. The Greeks called it “aesthetic stasis.” In India they call it samadhi.
The first time it happened to me was on the banks of the Willamette River in Eugene, Oregon. I was a grad student in philosophy at the University of Oregon, and to have a break from philosophical disputation, I would take a meditation beside the river a couple times a week.
One day, the negation of meditation became so intense that I couldn’t remember where I was, or anything else for that matter. I grew afraid, but I faced the fear and asked, am I losing my mind?
Beyond words, there was an insight that paradoxically, with the loss of psychological memory, I wasn’t losing my mind but gaining Mind. Functional memories returned, and I recognized my surroundings. I turned to meet my friend as scheduled, who said that I looked different even from a distance.
He was writing a dissertation on philosophy of science, and though he was an avid cannabis user, he couldn’t relate to what I was experiencing. It was unscientific to his mind, and belonged in the derided category of mysticism.
To most people, aesthetic stasis probably sounds like something you hope never happens to you. But it’s actually a state of indescribable bliss and ecstasy, not just a peak experience in one human being’s life. Indeed, direct experiencing of the numinous gives insight into the meaning of life.
Recently, I came across a group called the Galileo Commission, which, as it’s founder, David Lorimer puts it, “Seeks to widen science, particularly the science of consciousness, beyond a materialistic worldview, where it’s assumed the brain gives rise to consciousness, there’s no meaning and purpose in life, and that death is the end.”
As much as I sympathize with “calling into question the adequacy of science’s materialistic worldview,“ the difficulty with this approach is that it still gives priority to knowledge.
Seeking to replace the prevailing paradigm of science with a non-materialistic and non- mechanistic paradigm that encompasses mystical experiencing continues to place experiencing the known within the context of scientific knowledge.
That’s a logical contradiction that fails to see that the primacy of knowledge is the great impediment to humankind’s attainment of a higher consciousness.
When the mind spontaneously ceases chewing its cud of words and memories, and is completely still, there comes a benediction beyond all description. Unguided attention to what is (sensations, thoughts and feelings in the moment), is the action that quiets the mind, clears the heart, and opens the door to the benediction.
For that to happen, consciousness as we know it has to be negated, not researched and extended in scientific terms.
Given that the phenomenon of leaving the known happens within a few human beings, can it occur within many? And given that it occurs within one, why does the mind/brain return to the stream of the known after having left it?
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