MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Modes of Knowing
Man along with all other sentient beings participates in many states of existence, both simultaneously and successively. We live, move, and know these by consciously being in them; and we can learn to communicate with other states of being by practising a spiritual method such as meditation or similar yogic discipline, or by the reception of Faith through the Divine Name or some other gracious influence through a sacred person, ritual, or art. Since the practice of such a traditionally prescribed ascesis alters the mode of knowing of the human knower, he not only comes to know other worlds, which extend in an 'inner' direction, but also knows the 'outer' world in new ways inaccessible to the scientist or philosopher not trained in such spiritual disciplines. Nothing can be known except in the mode of the knower, but once he is united with the One and Only Knower, all things are known in their inmost essence.