How do we know? — III

Matthijs Cornelissen
last revision: 05 May 2025

from introspection to puruṣa-based self-observation

As we saw in the previous chapters, one of the reasons that the hard sciences made so much more progress than psychology is that they developed sophisticated instruments to make their observations more sensitive, precise and reliable, while psychology did not, or at least not sufficiently. While the instruments the hard sciences use to discover new things about the physical reality are primarily physical, the instruments psychology needs have to be primarily inner, psychological. So, in this section, we will have a closer look at these inner, psychological instruments and how they can be perfected for a more and more detailed and reliable study of what exists primarily in consciousness, or as the Chandogya Upanishad says, ‘behind our eyes’. [p. 306]

To get a better idea of what we mean by ‘inner instruments of knowledge’, it is useful to start by comparing two very different ways of looking inside: ordinary introspection, in which one looks with one part of one’s mind at what happens in another part of one’s mind, and a pure witness consciousness, sākṣī, which looks at what happens in the mind as if from the outside.
 

Of birds and balconies

There is a common notion, equally widespread in contemporary consciousness studies as in classical pramāṇa-based Buddhist and Indian epistemology, that one cannot at the same time observe the world, and be aware of oneself observing it. To use a simple metaphor, one cannot stand at the same time on a balcony and walk in the street.1 So, in ordinary introspection one tries to observe oneself by switching quickly between being engaged with the world and looking at the memory of how one was engaged with the world just a moment earlier.

One possible reason for the mutual exclusiveness of perception and self-awareness in the ordinary waking state might be that they tend to function through the same inner instrumentation: In the Indian terminology, it is the same manas, or sense-mind, which in our ordinary consciousness is either engaged with the outside world through the outer senses, or with the inner world through the inner senses. The manas may simply not be able to do both at the same time.

There is, however, a radically different way of observing oneself that actually can take place at the same time as any outer or inner action. This other type of self-observation can easily be confused with ordinary introspection, but it has an entirely different character. The main difference is that it is not based on an activity by the mind, but on a direct apprehension of reality by a pure witness consciousness (sākṣī). These two types of self-observation are depicted in the ancient Indian image of two birds, good friends, beautiful of feather who sit in the same tree: one eats the fruit while the other watches (Ṛg Veda I. 164. 2). Here, what watches is not the separative, ego-centric, and sense-mediated surface mind, but a deep, silent, non-egoïc, all-inclusive, pure consciousness that allows the egoïc actions (and even the egoïc observations) to continue somewhere in its own infinitude without being perturbed by them. As there is no egoïc centre and no boundaries to this background awareness, the question of recursion does not arise. And, as we will see, there arises at least the possibility of overcoming the other distortions and limitations of our embodied mind.

In practice, these two types of inner apprehension are not entirely exclusive of each other, and there are various in between stages. As one becomes only gradually more settled in the deeper, inner silence, it is possible, for example, to arrive first at an in-between status of consciousness from which one introspectively observes what one is doing with what we have called knowledge of type 3, and yet retain some intimate contact of type 2 with a deep inner vastness of silent awareness that is of type 1. One is then aware of the presence of pure consciousness as a kind of background for the superficial mental activity in which one is involved, while one still identifies more with the mental activity on the surface than with the wider consciousness in the background. When one goes deeper within, one begins to centre in that vastness itself so that one can observe not only the activities of the surface mind but also of other, much deeper and more subtle inner processes without losing in any way one’s real ‘identity’ (if that term still applies) as the all-including vastness. One can then, for example, be aware, through knowledge by intimate direct contact (type 2), of an infinite delight above, a borderless infinitude of awareness in between, and a complex stream of actions and events at various levels of conscious existence, both inside one’s own being and around it. It is these more inward ways of watching in an absolute inner silence that according to Sri Aurobindo can allow knowledge by identity to arise, not only of one’s own innermost self, but, potentially, of anything in existence.

In our interpretation of the ancient image of the tree inhabited by the two birds, the tree represents reality, and the birds are two major aspects or portions of our self that employ two very different ways of knowing. The world of the first bird, Nārāyaṇa (the Supreme), is part of an all-inclusive consciousness, containing all time and all opposites within itself. Nārāyaṇa watches in the Vedāntic, non-dual sense of the sākṣī (the witness consciousness) and remains unaffected by karma (in this context, one's actions and their consequences). The tree-world of the second bird called nara (man) belongs to the ordinary waking consciousness and is exclusive, enmeshed in time and causality. This bird ‘eats the fruits’: he is fully engrossed in life and suffers the consequences of his actions. Interestingly, and typical of the ancient, even-handed love for man and God, the birds are mentioned as good friends, and both as ‘beautiful of feather’. Though the two birds may remind one of the dualist conception of Puruṣa Prakṛti, the relation between Narayana and Nara is more intimate: they are described as good friends!2

Exploring the inner universe

Though it is not that simple to compare different knowledge systems, the degree to which the Indian ones have managed to expand our knowledge about the inner world of consciousness is no less impressive than the degree to which modern science has increased what we know about the physical universe. The sheer quality of what the Indian systems have found about the higher ranges of consciousness seems to confirm that the silent witness consciousness is indeed capable of studying the inner realities in a way that is as effective and reliable as the way telescopes and other physical instruments have proven to be for the study of the physical universe.

But at closer scrutiny, there is a crucial difference between the two. Our telescopes, however impressive in terms of the quantity of data they have produced, can in the end only add more of the same type,3 while the witness consciousness gives access to the Infinite itself, which adds something to our lives that is of an entirely different order than all that can be known in the ordinary waking consciousness.

And this difference becomes perhaps even more impressive in the applied sciences. More sensitive, accurate, and reliable observations are not all that is needed to take science further. There are many scientific disciplines in which it is not advanced instrument-enabled observations, but advanced instrument-enabled interventions that have driven the progress. In pharmacology and the material sciences, for example, highly trained specialists use advanced technology to create new types and forms of matter. And with those new materials new medicines and all kinds of gadgets and practical equipment can be made which then can be used with near-miraculous effect by completely ‘ordinary’ people. Though collectively we have given far more attention to progress in the material field, in its basic principle, in the way it works, this is not that different from what the two people with a higher consciousness[ p. 7] did, whom we mentioned in the very first paragraph of the Introduction. They had achieved, with the help of advanced yogic techniques, a higher consciousness that was clearly beneficial for the people they met even though the latter did not have direct access to that higher consciousness themselves. Other people with similar inner achievements used them to design simplified methods, like yoga-asanas, vipassana, and mindfulness, that benefit millions of people who themselves do not have the higher consciousness (yet).

To summarise, we can arrive at better knowledge of the inner domain following two quite different approaches: by the perfection of detached observation through what we called in the previous chapter the expert variety of direct separative knowledge, the witness consciousness, type 3. Or, we can develop a deeper understanding through a more dynamic, embodied engagement with what is happening inside, in other words, through the expert variety of direct intimate contact, type 2. Both can subsequently lead to the the perfection of type 1, knowledge by identity, through a radical transformation of our nature as inner instrument, antahkarana.

If there is any truth in the distinctions and possibilities mentioned so far, then the next question is, how do we do it? How do we move from the superficial and often erroneous knowledge provided by the observation of outer behaviour and ordinary introspection, to a more penetrating and reliable insight in the deeper layers of consciousness and human nature. In other words, how do we perfect our methods and our ‘inner instruments of knowledge’, our antaḥkaraṇa.

Endnotes