Sift the Knower from the Known

Sift the Knower from the Known

(Sonnet)

When your forms of world are known in waking, You can think it is your eyes are seeing: Eyes shine as knower of world forms making, With things and people known forms of being, But further think: your eyes are known by mind. As you introspect upon mind’s knowing, These eyes must be a form of world in kind, And mind is knower of world’s eyes glowing. Do not stop there! Observe your mind is blown, As when in meditation thoughts arise, Your mind, no longer knower, is the known.

You came this far and now you must apprise: You are the Knower of world, eyes, and mind… But Knower you cannot as known form bind.

9 November 2022

Written after reading “Drig Drishya Vivek” by Vidyaranya. The first verse of this work encapsulates the entire philosophy of true meditation. From eyes being the knower of the world, to mind being the knower of the eyes, to the Knower being the Knower of the mind--this is the progression. And the Knower is no form to be known.

This is meditation as I know and practice it, and as Guru-ji has taught me. Regardless of what happens in meditation, keep knowing that the Knower is free, pure, eternal--and it cannot be made a form to be known. It is always the Knower, and so, unchanging, formless. The infinity of Knower is Knowingness, our ever-present Being.

God bless.