Kenopanishad
Having thus posed the question to the teacher, the student sits quietly, the stillness of the air ringing with anticipation. The mind is open, and the desire for truth is deep. Into the stillness, the teacher responds:
The ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, and the life energy behind life energy. Being free [knowing this], the wise, on departing this field of experience, become immortal.
Interpretation
The gauntlet has been laid. The teacher has spoken from not the highest plane but a step below in the world of the relative. Even so, only the subtlest mind could know what the teacher is indicating, and the teacher is very well aware of this. When we say that only the subtlest mind could know, we are not talking about intellectual knowledge. Anybody can repeat the teacher's words, but have they the experience to drink the nectar from which the words spring? Any student can nod with a sanguine smile and apparent understanding of what is being said–perhaps even an intellectual grasp of the very source of causation–but to truly share the experience with the teacher of what is being indicated is another matter altogether.
At the level of health and medical inquiry that is standard today, the teacher's answer would be considered avoidance, nonsensical, even simply parroting what the student said! The teacher must be a fraud, a trickster, and a diverter of the highest order! After all, the student asked what it is that moves the mind, and the teacher answered that it is the mind of the mind! The student asked what makes the ear hear, and the teacher replied that it is the ear of the ear! What maddening riddle is this?!
If the student wants healing, she must be able to receive it. She must be prepared to receive it. To ask is one thing. To receive, another.
In fact, the teacher has given an utterly precise response based on a total comprehension of the student's stage of experience. The perceptive student has understood that the mind moves and takes the form of the object of perception. Now the teacher is asking the student to go even further. The level of understanding which would be an A+ for any other student would only be an F for this student, because their potential is so much greater! They are not seen with the same eyes that look upon other students, because their journey is accelerating and ascending into the subtle planes of consciousness where most don't dare venture. Put simply, the standard is different, and accordingly, the answer is given.
At the point at which understanding becomes tremendously subtle, the meaning of words change, and the words we typically use no longer suffice to direct the mind. Such a mind must be weaned from language through a variety of methods because the language that once brought clarity is fast becoming the language that imprisons. Hence the wise move from prose to poetry to silence.
This teacher of the highest order is nudging the student to grow ever subtler and retrace her steps. To reach those lands where the stepping stones of understanding are far, far apart, one has to glide into the higher climes of understanding, vision, and self-awareness.
"The ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech..."
With a deft use of language that would be excruciatingly painful to anyone but this student, the teacher is indicating that there is an original source that represents itself as the very function of mental movement, which only subsequently distills as the mind. The very same source becomes the function of hearing, distilled as auditory anatomy. The very same source becomes the function of seeing, distilled as visual anatomy, including the occipital cortex, the optic nerve, the retina, and all others aspects of sight. There is no direct philosophy being taught here, but the implication is as radical as it is thunderously powerful for our modern healthcare system: That which is physical is but a crystallized pattern of subtle [mental] processes. This, in a nutshell, is Mind-Body-Flow Theory.
In today's world, we often say, "I know, I know." I know this. I already know this. You don't have to tell me this again. I know it. I've heard this before.
But how well do we actually know?! We have innumerable textbooks on anatomy, physiology, pathology, embryology, histology, pharmacology, and many other -ologies. Each field is a series of stepping stones of understanding. Most stepping stones are of equal density. Some are slightly closer together, some are further apart, but most are relatively equidistant from each other, because that is necessary to give us the feeling of understanding–the feeling that the concepts that we are learning are not far off from the concepts we are used to.
But now we are talking about something altogether different. To answer the brilliant student's probing questions, more has to be demanded of the student herself! The student has to now go beyond the fundamentals of anatomy and physiology to the middle ground of anatomy as a function, with consciousness as its process. This can only come with direct self-reflection.
Such self-reflection can assist the student's mind in weaning from the grosser concepts and perceptions of even mind! Imagine! It is one thing to wean from the concept of the body as an independent object-matter (Importantly, this does not mean we cannot use the body-as-object-matter concept in the right context, it only means we choose it as needed while realizing its deeper nature.), but it is another thing entirely to wean from the mind. Hence the teacher is creating the bridge from the apparent solidity of the mind (consider how supernaturally solid memories, thoughts, and emotions can be) to the underlying process of consciousness that represents itself as any and all functions.
It is critical to note that this teacher does not stop with the unusual use of language. We can be certain that the teacher's presence and relationship with the student is also transmitting knowledge in the cracks between words and the silence between phrases.
Knowledge of health is transformative. It cannot come from reading a textbook, though textbooks can indicate a direction to proceed or not proceed. This transformative knowledge lives within each of us, and realizing it will transform the very objects of our desire. What we imagined health to be may not at all be what it truly is. Perhaps what we imagined as health is simply its paraphernalia, its side effects as it were. The student who is asking these questions must be at such a moment of potential transformation in their lives for the teacher to be giving such an answer.
Tomorrow, we continue the interpretation of this response to the student's desire for healing by diving into the teacher's insights into life energy–prana.
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