"The Awakening of Primal Knowledge"

 by Dr. Ashok K. Gangadean

 from Parabola, The Magazine of Myth & Tradition

 Spring 1997

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From the dawn of inner awakenings, there has been a quest for primal knowledge. Persistent throughout the world's cultures is the idea that all existence arises out of one ultimate truth, and that humanity strives to know this truth. Awakening to this knowledge is the highest essence of human life.

In the evolution of cultures, profoundly diverse accounts have been given of this primal truth and its realization. For example, the Bible states that God is One and that humans are commanded to love God with all their hearts and all their minds. God is the primal truth out of which all reality arises. The injunction to love God with our entire being calls for an wakening of deep knowledge of God. To love God is to know God with the heart and mind. Primal knowledge is inscribed in our being, and our whole being awakens to its truth. It is already present within us, waiting activation.

Holistic knowledge is different from more mundane and conventional ways of knowing. When we awaken to primal knowledge, there is a radical recentering of our lives in the Divine Presence. Our life is transformed: it is centered in God rather than in the subjective ego. The biblical tradition contrasts divine knowledge with mundane "knowledge" by speaking of awakening faith. With knowledge through faith, we directly encounter Divine Presence and enter an immediate relation with the Infinite Power. We become aware of the ultimate conditions of life and experience. Primal knowing transforms and fulfills our being.

Socrates articulates a different version of primal knowledge. He sees a strong contrast between rational awareness of eternal truth and transient "knowledge" about things of everyday life. Knowledge through our senses involves mental states which are fleeting and constantly changing. Such knowledge is mere opinion or belief and falls far short of genuine knowledge that arises through awakened Reason.

To gain primal knowledge, one must cultivate the soul. The more we distance ourselves from sensing objects, the closer we come to enlightened rational awareness. For example, in a clear vision of the pure essence of Justice, we gain recollection of a truth which starkly contrasts with the transient and imperfect "justice" of the everyday world. How do we gain timeless knowledge? There must be something in the knower akin to what is known.

Socrates introduces the remarkable thesis that primal knowledge is inscribed in the soul but is lost, repressed, or forgotten when the soul suffers the trauma of embodied existence. This is a perennial theme in the global evolution of thought: that humans live between two contrasting worlds or dimensions, the eternal and the temporal. The natural world of the soul is the eternal world – the dimension of Being, wherein the psyche realizes its immortal life. The world of the body is existence in space and time, the place of fleeting, ever–changing experience. immortal life is the higher life of primal knowing; mortal life is the physical, biological life of the embodied psyche. In crossing between dimensions, the soul's innate knowledge is forgotten. For Socrates, the primary task of human existence is to remember. To remember is to awaken our higher rational powers, and to retrieve the knowledge hidden within.

Plato further clarifies primal knowledge by tracing rational consciousness from lower states of transient images and beliefs to the highest intuition. The source is a supreme Primal Form – the Universal Form of Goodness – that illumines eternal knowledge in the world of soul. It makes all things possible through its unifying power, which orders the field of primal knowledge. Everyday consciousness lives in a darkened cave of shadows and appearances, but awakened consciousness crosses into the rational light of Goodness and sees eternal forms. As in the Biblical tradition, there is a primal truth, but it is through rational enlightenment that humans come to a higher form of knowing and being.

If we can scan the global spectrum of cultural traditions throughout the ages, we find a rich variety in the quest for primal knowledge. In the Dogon tradition of Africa, the primal force is called "Nommo," the original Word out of which all names and realities issue. Nommo is the Primal Vital Force, the living energy that pulsates through existence. Primal knowledge is expressed in primal living – living in sacred awareness and celebration of the originating life force.

In China, we find the primal truth in the Tao, the infinite Nameless Name. The classic pattern of primal knowing appears as awareness moves beyond forms of duality and objectification to holistic experience in Tao. The awakening involves a dramatic revolution in how we think about "knowledge." In egocentric knowing, the focus is on the mental states of the ego, but in primal knowing the "knower" enters a direct relation with Tao. Tao saturates existence with the energy of knowledge. To awaken to Tao is to awaken to the ecology of primal knowledge.

The pattern is also evident in the primal Aum of the Hindu tradition. In the Vedic teachings, Aum is the sacred symbol that generates all things. Aum is primal truth, the infinite sound that is the origin of names and forms and yet is beyond designation. One symptom of egocentric thought is chronic fragmentation, the dualizing of rational life. These divisions lie in deep ignorance and produce human suffering. Through meditative technologies of this tradition, the various yoga sciences, the barriers dissolve and the knower participates in the unified field of existence. The path to genuine knowledge awakens the knower to a direct encounter with the infinite. The knower is transformed in a dynamic process; the knower and the known become unified through immediate mutual participation.

Primal knowledge belongs to the Buddhist traditions as well. Here, too, the primary challenge is moving beyond the egocentric mind. In letting go of the "object of knowledge," genuine knowledge is realized; in letting go of the ego–knower, primal knowledge is realized. Knowledge blossoms with the awakening mind that participates in the boundless interplay of things.

In Zen experience, the interplay between the knower and the known is so profound that egocentric language is totally inadequate. The connection is like that in archer, where archer, bow, arrow, the action of taking aim, and the target all merge to become a holistic process. Knowledge is more about the process of awakening mind than about "content" of thought or "object" of knowledge. This is the Zen way of knowing.

What is remarkable about the diverse traditions of primal knowledge is the common patterns, convergences, and emerging consensus. For example, all accounts gravitate toward a primordial truth. Human experience, thought, and reason arise in a field which is presided over by a unifying power, which is boundless or infinite.

A common ground lies at the core of the diverse traditions, and I have proposed the word "Logos" for the fundamental primal truth. When we situate the many traditions in the light of Logos, something remarkable begins to emerge. Logos implies that nothing stands apart or exists independently, as egocentric thought insists. Its unifying power suggests that all things are inter–related through a dynamic process of reality. It is the selfsame force that spawns multiplicity, diversity and difference. Logos generates alternative accounts which express the fundamental pattern of primal knowledge. It should not be surprising that remarkable convergences exist across the global spectrum of cultures. There is a common quest for primal knowledge because there is a common Logos expressed in all realities.

There are two ways of knowing and two kinds of knowledge. Egocentric knowing eclipses primal knowledge and is lodged in a chronic pattern of fragmentation and dualism. It cannot process the infinite structure of the unified field. In contrast, the quest for primal knowledge breaks down barriers and crosses into the play of Logos. The awakening of primal knowledge involves nothing less than the awakening of our being and participation in true Knowledge.

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