Knot There
A post meant for elsewhere
(This post is the first of a blog being built elsewhere (https://knotthere.net). If you feel so inclined, please go subscribe to the RSS feed, as the majority of posts will be exclusive to that site.)
I am. There is being, existence. We exist, and there is a pure awareness of what is. A pure awareness without anything else added to it as a way of sculpting, knowing, or finding something, some answer. Pure awareness as presence. You are. I could go on, but I will continue to test the limits of language where that which simply is is concerned. Yet, something is awry, something is not sitting right, try as hard as we might, whatever we seem to do provides no real answers, and, in some elusive place, we feel a tension, a contraction, a knot.
There is a knot there that is not there.
There is an apparent knot there, here, or anywhere, which is commonly called ‘you’ or ‘I’. The reality of this knot is strange. This knot is completely free-floating in space with nothing pulling it into contraction. Nothing is contracting this knot, as to even make it, by definition, a knot. The knot doesn’t exist, it is not there, not really. The knot is a complete paradox. It pulls unto itself as to make itself contract and thus be and become a knot, but when we investigate the reality of that which pulls or is doing the pulling (therein that which would make it a knot altogether), we find nothing. Nothing is pulling the knot tight other than the pulling itself. When ‘we’ (‘you’ or ‘I’) don’t look, it pulls and appears to exist. Yet, when we look, nothing is pulling the knot at all. When we look for the I, we find nothing.
The knot is the self, or more precisely, it is that which we refer to when we say ‘I’, as in the statements ‘I am James’, ‘I am an angry person’, or ‘I am discontent’. It is that which we refer to when we say ‘Me’, as in the statements ‘She knows me best’, ‘Don’t take it out on me…’, or ‘They’re plotting against me!’. It is that which we refer to when we say ‘Mine’, as in the statements ‘The privilege is mine’, ‘None of this is mine’, or ‘I’ve got mine’. Most of the time I will stick to the term ‘I’, as that’s what we most commonly use in day-to-day chatter, but the metaphor of the ‘I’ as a knot or the knot is helpful, and will often be used to elaborate on what it is to ‘undo’ the knot.
The main point, the pseudo-crux of everything (but definitely not everything itself), is the falsity of the knot, the you, the ‘I’. The I doesn’t exist. It’s not there. In fact, if you want to skip reading this entire blog, including all future posts altogether, investigate the reality of the I right now. Try find it. Try locate it. Try describe it. There are thoughts, memories, sensations, feelings, and emotions, each arising in the singular and only ever to be seen as the singular. Then there is the body, an object in space that appears to ‘house’ the I, and yet, I ask again for you to try and locate that ‘felt sense’ of I in the body. Literally, point to it, find it. Stick with this practice, and you won’t need the rest. Or, for a more robust exposition on this, see Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Who Am I?
With that out of the way, what this blog intends to be is a resource of investigation into the non-reality of the self, the I. The question might arise for the reader as to why I am writing this at all[1]? On the one hand, it’s just being written. On the other, I could try pull some ‘reasons’ out of nowhere, but really these would be retrospective stories placed on top of that which is already happening. So, why is this being written? Because it is.
The next post will be specifically on this topic, but it should be emphasised here, at the ‘opening’, that there isn’t anything being said here. Nothing is being taught. There is nothing to teach and nothing to give. The idea of something to teach or give implies someone to give or teach it to, and they aren’t. The knot, on the other hand, loves teachings and practice and knowledge, and so will quickly try and place what it finds here into some or other memorised box that it can utilise for increased knotting or increased tension.
This brings up the odd question of just how to approach this writing. Words such as open, vulnerable, gentle, or neutral are all gestures toward some elusive mode. But again, there’s nothing to be taught or to be had. The blog will be holistic in the sense that nothing is being built. There isn’t a progression here. That would imply some end result, or conclusion, some or other point where things will be done and we’ll have some or other amazing answer-experience that will just magically solve everything. This isn’t the case. Perhaps whilst reading something will unceremoniously click and you’ll be done, click off the tab and get on with your life. But then again, perhaps this won’t happen.
This whole thing is really a paradox. The more is done, the more doing is happening, the more the knot finds places to tense up and solidify its falseness. Even here at the start, the knot might try get onboard with what’s going on and co-opt the whole (non)endeavour, internally stating that this is all very fascinating and intriguing, and that one should go off and research and read and make sure they’re really getting it right. Of course, this a paradox for the fact the knot can’t undo the knot. The self can’t get rid of the self.
The most important thing (above all else) for the self is to survive. The knot’s number one priority is to remain as a knot, to remain tense, to remain contracted. It will do this by any means. It will latch onto any experience, idea, reading, or thing as a means to justify its reality. It is often only later we realise that instead of open-engagement with this, what Is, the self has created an idea of open-engagement from which to work. The difference, in a way, between being content and acting as someone content would act. But we’ll get to all this down the line.
It’s about that contraction, that tightness, that felt-sense of askew-ness. It’s about why nothing has worked, it’s about the question of why nothing is working. It’s about that which Is. It is the end that ends itself. The non-end of the infinite. It is.
I hope you all travel lighter someday too
[1] The word I is still used in the normative sense, otherwise things get pretentious. Even after the realisation of no-self people refer to their name. It’s confusing, until it isn’t.
Intriguing read, love the 'knot' analogy. Its helped me understand a current relational issue. Thank you.
Why do you feel the need to split your writing, instead of just making a tag on here for those pieces for instance?