Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.
September 29, 2010 (#35)
Student: Is there any knowing that is non-active? Or thats ever a non-active knowing, or is activity inherent in all-knowledge?
Michael: Ive used the expression capital K-knowing as a way of describing a fully aware presence that is non-active yet fully engaged. Small k-knowing, on the other hand, is an often unrecognizable process that yields very recognizable clinging. This kind of mental activity is a flow of energy that wraps itself around objects. No energy is required to allow that Big Knowing to burst through, into, and with us in this moment.
Student: Are you saying that any time one opens one’s mouth to speak, and then words come out, that there is at the very minimum, a slight contraction?
Michael: Yes, I am. This doesnt mean that we shouldnt speak, but it does mean that conscious silence can be understood in mysterious ways that often serve as a full expression of the Infinite.
Student: So, the full expression of the Infinite can only be experienced in silence, alone?
Michael: The full expression of the Infinite can only be experienced when one sees that instead of being alone he or she is actually all one. That’s the first step. The second step happens when all one sees itself through the body as the many. The third step is a homecoming of sorts, when both all one and the many arise in experience at the same time. When this happens we consciously experience and express spirit. Put another way we see through a Buddha’s eyes.