I Don't Know...
How many times have I used that line..?
"I don't know..."
How many times have you heard that?
"I don't know."
Those three words, (four if we split the contraction, 'don't' into 'do not'), are used quite consistently daily by most everyone. Those words could very well be the basis for doing life. If we pursue the answer that follows the statement, which is but an answer to a question itself, we set out on a journey, (maybe a step, maybe a lifetime), to our not knowing in the first place. How can we know something if we didn't know it in the beginning? We're not born with 'knowing' but we are born with the potential for knowing. Some know enough to live long and fruitful lives by knowing enough to feed, clothe and shelter themselves, other know enough to make zillions of dollars and most others know enough to fit in between these extremes.
Knowing is a necessity for our basics - we know when we're cold, we know when we're hungry, we know when we're sick - how do we know these things? If what I said above, "we're not born knowing" is true, how do we 'know' we're cold, hungry or sick? These are responses to our physicality, our bodily needs. We learn to know them as cold, hunger or sickness, but initially we simply respond to these experiences and learned to identify them as they are. Learning to identify is a progression in knowing. We identify the chill in the air as 'being cold' which in turn makes us cold.
Knowing and understanding: knowing that we're cold does not make us understanding of this cold. Knowing that we're hungry does not automatically bring an understanding of why we have hunger. It doesn't take long to find these basics out, but in the beginning we respond to the cold by embracing ourselves and if additional protection is available, we cover our exposed body to lessen the cold. We learn to understand that protection from cold, our alleviation of hunger is knowing how to do these things.
But we, mankind, have come a long way from the basic responses of staying alive (protection from cold, feeding our hunger, fighting off our sicknesses), to people that understand more of our world than ever before. But all this understanding, while it makes us more knowing, we oftentimes assume this is all we need to know. It seems enough - we're pretty well-fed, we're well-protected from the elements, if we're sick there's medicines out there than can cure us... all-in-all, we've advanced as a species upon this planet vigorously. We may not understand our progress, but if we know of our primal beginnings, we know we've come a long way.
So what? We still don't know. If we did there'd be nothing we did not know. And we all know that there's always something to know. That in itself is pretty amazing - that we know there's more to know. How do we know that?
"I don't know."
We can only postulate using what we know now to know we don't know now. Again, it is this "don't knowing" that allows us to know. And the more we know of all that we know, we still don't know all there might be to know... and all there might be to know is unknowable. So if all there is to know is unknowable, why do we continue learning to know that which is presently unknowable?
"I don't know."
Damn mind!! Endlessly hungry to know. It doesn't matter what it wants to know... mind just continuously demands to know. Never satisfied it churns away in our heads spewing out questions, those infernal why's, what's, where's, when's, who's and the eventual how's.... it never stops. Mind is the agent provocateur even in our dreams when our bodies require rest and sleep. Mind - the insatiable quest for knowledge, no matter the significance, it matters not as long as it provokes knowing. Mind works slavishly for knowing... the mystery of mysteries... this illusive knowing what's to be known., indeed at times demands to be known. But our minds, despite it's overtime, cannot know more than knowing.
Knowing is an ongoing process that is within mind. It isn't mind that knows. Conversely, mind knows nothing. It's a tool for knowing... for knowing is a process, like living, like being... it just is. Knowing is as eternal, beyond living, and infinite, beyond the universe... to know Knowing is to know the Absolute. But can we ever know Knowing as intimately as we'd like to know?
"I don't know..."
If we rely only on mind to answer the question of how do we know Knowing, I can only presume that if we put all our energy into mind to know Knowing, I would have to conclude "no, we can't know Knowing, for to know Knowing requires knowing that Knowing is beyond the boundaries of mind. Mind cannot fully contain knowing the All-Knowing. Mind is an instrument of survival... a tool the more familiar we become with, the more able mind is to understand it's limitations to knowing. But as mind continues seeking answers, it would seem that mind believes it can contain the All-Knowing. This isn't a case of mind playing tricks but rather choice of knowing being the trick.
We enter mind-knowing to unravel the mystery of Knowing, but that knowing become no longer a know-ing but a known. Known's are those things which have become conclusions to the process of knowing. It's not enough to have knowns. Be-ing liv-ing entities we seek a return to Know-ing. We are a process, as all liv-ing be-ings are. That is our similarity to Knowing, but be-ing but a mote in the 'Eye of Knowing' we can only know that which the mote is, if we rely only upon mind as the source of knowing the Knowing.
Mind requires the unknown to be known. It then gives us a reprieve until it's next questions infiltrate our being. But having knowns is to know but a static reflection of Knowing... what is known is past, has passed, but Knowing is beyond the limitations of what mind categorizes as past and future. Knowing is now. Now doesn't have a need for mind to categorize subjects into time-zones of passed and future. Now is to be in sync with what Knowing is all about... always knowing without having known anything. If we are able to park mind away... hang it up on the tool rack, then we get at least a glimpse of Knowing, not the temporal knowing of becoming known, but the continual, eternal, infinite Knowing that has no known - the All Knowing that transcends mind's time and spacial limitations... knowable but never known, always Now, never then... unquestionable, ya know?
Let go of the know-ledge of the known knowing you can know the Knowing now
((I don't know..." 
))Cecil
17 December 2006
Speaking of not knowing....
This is an OP (other person's) photo that's a rather peculiar grouping of objects, don't you know?
