Continued from Verse Eleven
12. That alone is true Knowledge which is neither knowledge nor ignorance. What is known is not true Knowledge. Since the Self shines with nothing else to know or to make known, It alone is Knowledge. It is not a void.
Commentary: True Knowledge is not knowledge of anything. Knowledge of anything, or knowledge that anything is or is not the case, is relative knowledge of objects, knowledge of things that come and go, things that have boundaries. It is about these things that ignorance is possible. It is only when one looks through the lens of the ego, that separating belief that “I am in here, as opposed to the things I experience, which are out there,” that there are objects to know or to be ignorant of.
True Knowledge is that which illuminates even the ego. It isn’t object-based knowledge. It has no opposite. It shines by itself, and is self-illuminating. In the blinding light of the sun, there cannot be said to be any visible objects. The same is true of what is seen in the blinding light of the Self. If one sees the Self, one cannot see the ego. Seeing through the ego is premised on forgetting the Self, on its being obscured — or at least its seeming to be obscured.
The knowledge that is the Self is not knowledge of any objects, but that does not mean it is simple nothingness. It’s not a thing, but nor is it a void. It is what it is — pure illumination. What that is like is indescribable, since to describe it, one would need to think about it, and that would require the ego. And yet, though it is indescribable, we experience it at all times.
At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here.