Image: 'Meeting' by James Turrell, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
A mystic is someone who asks, ‘What is the nature of myself?’ A scientist is someone who asks, ‘What is the nature of the universe?’ If both parties go far enough, they come to the same understanding: the awareness of being, or the simple knowledge ‘I am’.
In other words, the reality of our self and the reality of the universe are one and the same. Although this reality cannot legitimately be named, we could call it ‘being’, ‘awareness’ or ‘God’.
To understand this, we must first understand how it is possible to know the nature of reality. Everything we know about the universe is filtered through the finite mind, that is, the faculties of thinking and perceiving. These faculties are limited; therefore, everything we know about the universe appears in accordance with their limitations. When we look at snow through orange-tinted glasses, we see orange snow. Likewise, when we view the universe through the lens of perception – seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling – the world appears to us as sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells. In other words, sense perception distorts the true nature of reality just as orange-tinted glasses distort the true colour of snow.
Therefore, we cannot know the nature of reality through the faculties of thinking and perceiving. We can only know the nature of reality through an experience that is not mediated by the finite mind and, therefore, does not share its limitations. Is there such an experience?
The only experience that is not mediated through the finite mind is the experience of being, or the knowledge ‘I am’. The knowledge ‘I am’ – the awareness of being – is the only knowledge in which we have direct, unmediated access to reality. It is like a beacon in the mind that indicates the reality beyond it.
In the words of the Sufi mystic Awhad al-din Balyani, ‘Whosoever knows their self, knows their Lord’. In other words, whosoever knows the nature of their own being, knows the nature of reality. Whosoever knows their self, knows the ultimate reality of the universe.
For this reason, any scientist who wants to understand the nature of reality must eventually become a mystic. Whatever reality essentially is must be what we essentially are. The reality of the ocean, relatively speaking, is the same as the reality of the wave. In order to know the reality of the universe, we need to know the reality of our self. In fact, this is the only way to know the reality of the universe since self-knowledge is the only knowledge that is not mediated through the finite mind. Therefore, any scientist who wants to know the nature of the universe must approach reality through their self, not the world.
Everything depends upon our knowledge of our self. We cannot have any real knowledge of the universe until we have self-knowledge. As all other knowledge is relative to the finite mind through which it is known, the knowledge ‘I am’ is, therefore, the only knowledge that is absolutely true. As such, it is absolute knowledge. It is the great understanding that all the saints and sages have been pointing to over the millennia.
The awareness of being is our primary experience, our principal knowledge. We know ‘I am’ before we know any other knowledge. It is also the final knowledge: the great understanding towards which all knowledge tends. It is the Alpha and the Omega – the first and last knowledge – and it is shining brightly now as the simple knowledge ‘I am’.
