Improving one's inner instruments of knowledge — III

Matthijs Cornelissen
last revision: 19 August 2024

improving inner knowledge collectively

The more mundane and down-to-earth question before us here in this text is how to use this high quality inner knowledge to change the basic direction of science and the educational system in such a way that our collective progress will become less painful, less chaotic, more integral and more harmonious. In other words, how can science, as humanity's most open, progressive — and influential — knowledge system help us to develop not only physical knowledge and power but also psychological knowledge and wisdom?

Developing the three inner ways of acquiring knowledge collectively

We saw in the previous section, why the shift of our centre of identification from the ego-based mind to our highest Self can make it possible, at least in principle, to perfect the three inner ways of acquiring knowledge which we discussed in the previous chapter. But, seeing the immense difficulties that arise when one tries to link the finite elements of Nature, prakṛti, to the Infinities to which the Self belongs, one might well doubt whether it is realistic to think of using this approach to make ordinary, mainstream psychology more effective. One of the reasons it might help even "down here" is that even a gradual shift in the direction of the mental puruṣa, without opening fully to the inner infinities, can already help considerably to observe what happens in one's inner and outer nature since it will help knowledge of type three (3_e) to become more precise and less biased. This is probably the most widely achievable, and as such most suitable method to initiate the kind of joint projects between mainstream psychology and those who try to follow the yogic path which we will discuss in the next chapter. But doing so is not fully enough. We also need a more dynamic approach which can deepen and expand knowledge by intimate direct contact (2_e) and finally a further opening inwards to increase our access to knowledge by identity (1_e).

As discussed earlier, these three ways of developing knowledge of the inner domain are closely related. There is a gradient of intermediate forms of knowing in between them, and an increasing proficiency in one often, though not always, leads to a more frequent occurrence of the other. Still, for the sake of mental clarity it is good to distinguish them, if only because they belong to two entirely different epistemic realms. Even the most expert modes of knowledge by separative and intimate direct contact are still, just as sense-based knowledge and introspection, the result of a contact, however direct and subtle, between the self and what is ordinarily not considered to be 'oneself'. As a consequence, they are in the radical language of the Vedic tradition, still considered to be a form of avidyā, no-knowledge or ignorance, even though they can know other people, animals, 'things' and events by an effortless, and in some sense perfect inner knowing. They lead to a kind of semi-spontaneous, horizontal expansion of what one knows directly from inside, and they are the source of most forms of 'extra-sensory' perception that are studied by parapsychology.

Knowledge by identity, on the other hand, is the pure faculty of knowledge, vidyā, that is inherent in all being. In humans, it is to be found in its pure form only in the puruṣa, in our silent, innermost Self. As we have seen, it exists according to the Indian tradition because in its deepest essence, everything is still One, is Brahman1. While it is considered in principle possible to know in this way everyone, everything, every event, past and future with a total perfection ‘in the way God knows it’, it is good to realise that at our present stage of evolution, at best tiny bits of this knowledge will come to us, and even that only at the end of a very long journey. In other words, while the knowledge of these two innermost types is by itself perfect, to become aware of that knowledge in one's outer consciousness, to share it, and especially to do anything with it, one's outer nature needs an extremely radical transformation, and to express them fully and perfectly may not be achievable yet. What actually happens is that little bits of this intuitive knowledge occasionally enter our system and there get mixed with our ignorantly constructed outer knowledge. Interestingly, even this much can have a life-changing effect, and with sufficient effort, the occurence of such inflows of higher types of knowledge can increase and gradually retain more and more of their original quality.2

Where do we take it from here?

At the end of the chapter on the evolution of consciousness I hinted at the higer ranges of consciousness and what they can do for us,3 and here I'm doing it once again at the end of this chapter on turning our own minds into reliable instruments for the study of the inner domain. But these highest ranges are not the focus of this text. I've brought them in mainly to provide a context: to give a direction to our efforts and show why it is worth studying the inner domain with all the enthusiasm and all the rigour science can provide, so that we can, even collectively, begin to develop a more comprehensive, more integral understanding of reality in all its miraculous beauty.

As we all know, all journeys, however long, start at home, and so we'll now have a more down-to-earth look at how mainstream academics can make a beginning with the study of the inner domain. Obviously we don't suggest we should stop studying behaviour, neurology, ancient or modern texts and so on. All that has its use, but something has to be added. We also have to learn how to study the inner reality, and as we have tried to argue throughout the previous chapters, one of the best ways to do so may well be to engage with the technology of consciousness developed by the Indian traditions to finetune our own inner instruments of knowledge. So in the next chapter, we will discuss a few different ways by which this can be done. More specifically, we'll have a look at how the knowledge systems of science and yoga can collaborate in the development of sophisticated scientific knowledge in the domains of psychology and spirituality with the help of insights and methods of enquiry that have their origin in science as well as in the yoga traditions.

To this end, we'll first have a look at the many things that yoga and science as complex collective knowledge systems have in common, then at those in which they differ, and finally, at the end, we'll venture some possible pathways for how they can work together, see what we can all agree on, and on which issues, future research should focus.

Endnotes