What do we know for sure

– quoting Jed McKenna –

Cogito ergo sum

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it makes a noise?”

That is not a koan because it has a very specific answer. Yes. The answer is yes because the question says so. The question establishes that the tree and the forest are known to exist without being seen, so it naturally follows that any sound therein exist without being heard.

There is a wormhole there into a deeper question. What do we know for sure? That’s the real question. That’s what the cogito is. It’s all about figuring out exactly what we know for certain as opposed to everything else.

We don’t know anything -we can’t know anything. The only thing you can know for sure is that you exist, and that any other true knowledge is impossible.

I am is the fundamental constant of knowledge, everything else is a belief.

The only truth is I Am – I Exist. 
That is the only truth. 
Everything else is a concept. 
– Ramesh Balsekar –

I-Am/Consciousness is the totality of certain knowledge. Everything else is belief and no belief is true. I have not come across anything I would consider impossible except knowing the fact that ‘I Am’. That’s it. This is the awaken perspective (paradigm) or worldview. What more can we say about consciousness? Nothing. You are it, it is you.

I-Am/Consciousness is just another way of saying Atmanic/Brahmanic Consciousness. The I-Am part is the Atmanic Consciousness, and the Consciousness part is Brahmanic Consciousness. Before the foreslash, is self as you know yourself, and after the foreslash is the truth of you, no-self, which is timeless and undifferentiated and all that.

Knowing that no one can know anything is indeed the gateway to knowing everything. Nothing can be known or discovered or figured out beyond I Am. No other knowledge than I-Am/Consciousness is possible.

It’s the simple mathematics of truth; when you have beliefs, you are dreaming in the Dreamstate paradigm and when you remove all beliefs, you are awake (and lucid dreaming) within the Consciousness paradigm.

There is no greater authority in the universe than you. If you know I Am, then you have reached the Knowledge Maximum. No facts, no proof, no science, no math, no indisputable knowledge or airtight logic, just the overwhelming incredible understanding that there is no universe outside of consciousness.

The only thing I know is that I exist. I Am.

Socrates said that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing, but the more refined version of this statement is, “The only thing I know is that I exist. I Am.” And what is the nature of I Am? Consciousness. I Am and consciousness are synonymous. To say either is to say the other. I-Am/Consciousness is the term we’ll use in this document to refer to the single certainty. I exist. I am conscious. I-Am/Consciousness.

I Am is the alpha and omega of knowledge. Nothing else is known or knowable by any conscious entity, anywhere, ever. ‘I Am’ is the absolute universal constant of knowledge, and there is no other absolute universal constant of anything else.

“The belief in things which are untrue is what imprisons us in the dream state. We must question all of our beliefs and assumptions down to the very source of our being until that which is true, real, and everlasting reveals itself. I am is the absolute truth. Everything else is a belief. Awareness is all.”

– Adyashanti –

As Nisargadatta Maharaj said so brilliantly and beautifully,

“The ultimate understanding is that there is no ultimate understanding.”

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