by Sad emo 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
One "knows" that one exists, and it doesn't take a conclusion to arrive at this "knowing" - it is obvious, and takes no thought at all for this to be realized.
How in the bloody blue blazes can you know anything without thinking? To know is to think, whether you ponder it or not.
think
1 : to form or have in the mind 5 : to call to mind : remember
Of course, then it possibly follows that to think is to be. Burn
How in the bloody blue blazes can you know anything without thinking? To know is to think, whether you ponder it or not.
This is the fundamental error, to equate "knowing" with thinking. It is consciousness which "knows" - without consciousness/knowing it wouldn't be possible to "know" you are thinking. Think about that - how is it "known" that thought is present if not for consciousness/knowing? Consciousness/knowing, therefore, precedes thinking. Normally we combine thinking and knowing together into one thing because thought cannot be separated from consciousness, but with investigation it will be found that without thought consciousness/knowing remains. You can't have thought without consciousness, but you can have consciousness without thought. This is what "enlightenement" is - the realization of consciousness as the foundation of everything else, to be one's essential nature prior to the arising of thought. Within the realm of the mind, of course, we accumulate knowledge about particular things and we say "I know this about that subject", and that's fine as far as that goes. But when investigating the very nature of oneself, of one's existence, this no longer works. When you ask yourself, "What am I really?" you won't find anything other than changing ideas of "self" and the consciousness in which those ideas arise. With sincere investigation there comes a moment when the "idea of me" is no longer present (in other words, the mind stops completely) and yet there is still "knowing" going on, but that knowing hasn't attached itself to any particular thing or idea. There is an alertness, consciousness, wakefulness, "knowing" that is undeniable. I don't ask that you believe me; one must find this out for oneself.
