There is so much in this chapter, which I’ve read several times, but today I particularly enjoy this distinction. This morning I saw that it explains perfectly an experience I had one morning when I woke up. I can now say I woke up in the state of pure percipience. Everything was available but nothing was ‘known’ in the sense of there being a personal meaning, or a descriptive knowledge. The suddenly, with a jolt, the ‘self’ came back into play. Previously, I have described this as ‘came back into my body’ (which from a certain perspective, says something useful). Then I knew who I was, where I was, where I’d been last night, and (conditionally) where I was going today. However, with this morning’s reading of Ch13, I want to now say, a different kind of knowledge than the first kind (the raw perceptions) arose. With it came the sense of a temporal ‘self.’
I’ll write more about the exercise later. I did it for 45 mins. this morning and (apart from a lovely recognition of the process itself, I got a lot of benefit from the emotional unfolding that came incidentally with it.)
– Christopher.
