Hierarchy of Knowledge

Dr. Deepak Ranade's another exceptional article was published in TOI Speaking Tree. I'm so lucky and happy that he had sent me a copy before it got published, and I was pretty moved by it's content.

Here it is, "Hierarchy of Knowledge":

The brain is ever endeavoring to learn, comprehend, understand. It is being flooded with information at maybe the rate of a million MB per second. It processes the data at an even more astonishing speed.

Processing data implies prioritizing the data. To assign meaning to incoming data
is a very important aspect of intelligence.

Interpretation of the data is a a very highly developed intelligence.
Data is ubiquitous. Right from the radio-waves emitted by celestial bodies from a few million light years away, to the feel of our clothing against our bodies, we are being bombarded by data.
Intelligence is the skill and speed to scan the incoming data, compare it with the existing database , discard the unimportant part (like the feel of our clothes against our skin) and also store the useful new data for future reference.

Apples fell even before Newton discovered gravity, but Newton processed the same data witnessed by others in a different paradigm. He discovered a force which till then was not known to mankind, no parallel, no tangible units of measurement and was embellished in abstraction. This realization or flash of comprehension was abstract intelligence at a sublime level, where his conclusion was not a mere deduction, or just analysis. Analysis would be a synthesis or jugglery of already known facts but where the summation leads to a greater than phenomenon that is where awareness transcends intellect, analysis and reasoning.

Science is essentially related to a spatio-temporal grid. It is seemingly restrained by the confines of cause and effect. Any theory has to be reinforced by experimental verification and then to be ratified by adding the attributes of repeatability and predictability. This verification is mediated by measurable parameters, which again are the slaves of the tangibles governed by the senses.
The boat of the sense organs can navigate the intellect only within the waters of the tangible. Once it touches the shores of the intangible the sense organs are powerless and defunct. The realms of the intangible may be dwelled into only by awareness, which is supra-sensory and out of the spatio-temporal Cartesian grid. This intangible is out of bounds for the intellect which is defanged when depraved of sensory inputs. That is the reason why this aspect of knowledge is termed as “Realization”. Realization implies knowledge which is already there but which we are unaware of. The knowledge of the form shifts focus to awareness. Awareness is independent of subject object bifurcation Reasoning, deduction and investigation are meaningless tools which only obfuscate and serve to the detriment of the user.

The knowledge of the manifest is a stepping stone to enhancing awareness. By knowing what I am not is a very potent principle to know what I am. If I cannot fathom the manifest, then I cannot even dream of the unmanifest. The journey to realization involves traveling over a diverse terrain. Each distinct terrain requires a commensurate vehicle. The vehicle of reason used to traverse the terra firma of tangibility needs to be abandoned when one has to take to the aerial journey of enhanced awareness. For this journey one has to travel very light, against the gravity of reason, logic and sensory perception into the realm of space of consciousness. The only navigation system being the guidance of the Guru. Most perceive the Guru to be in a particular form and person. But actually the Guru is a tatva (principle). It could manifest in any form. It only requires the disciple to be in a state of preparedness or conditioning before it reveals itself.

The entire journey is beyond the realm of consciousness. As consciousness involves duality, i.e. someone is conscious of something, the subject object dichotomy still lingers.
When one transcends consciousness, there is only awareness, a sense of “I am”.
Consciousness can be conditioned and adulterated by desires, vasanas. But awareness supercedes all and is the dwelling or source of the supreme being. This awareness is bliss, joy bereft of any duality, form and shape. In this state all derivatives of consciousness like space, time form and appearance melt into just “I am” .

Somewhat akin to the Bose- Einstein condensate of matter. The inability to communicate this state of awareness using the parameters of the conscious state leads to the mysticism of spiritual knowledge. But this knowledge is of the highest order and really ceases to be knowledge also as knowledge is implicit with a “knower” which again is a state of duality.