Levels of Knowing
There can be considered to be three different levels of knowing. The first level of knowing is what we know because we are it. The second level of knowing is what we know because we have direct contact or experience of it. The third level of knowing is what we know through a third party.
Lets now look at each level in detail. The first level is the primary one we are working towards in meditation and it deals with what is. That is, what we are and what the world in which we appear to exist is. At present you may be uncertain as to exactly what or who you are. But through meditation it is possible to gain this type of knowledge. This knowledge is unique in that it is not objective, it is subjective, and so we do not know by observing but by being. What we can come to know is the great mystery that is our existence. This mystery has no bounds or definition yet it can be known. Initially, this may be via occasional communion with our profound state of being. This communion can give way, at any time, to abiding as the mystery, being the mystery and knowing it to be our very self with absolute certainty. This form of knowing is often termed realisation and is a state in which one intimately knows and is merged with the true reality of existence.
The second level of knowing is what we know by direct experience. Much of this comes to us via our senses. It is a lesser form of knowing than the first and associated with less certainty. We often doubt what we experience, especially if it is out of the bounds of our normal experience. We may think that it is an hallucination, imagination or a dream and therefore dismiss it as unreal.
The third level of knowing comes from others. This might be a book, the TV or another person. It has the least level of certainty associated with it and yet it is often associated with very strong beliefs. This third, second hand form of knowing is the one we get most of when we are growing up and tend to take as being the truth. We tend to believe what we are told about life by parent, teachers and religious leaders. We take it as the truth when we are told where we come from, who god is, where we go when we die, etc. At some point we have to understand this and if we are to grow beyond our child given beliefs we need to inspect these deeply held beliefs in the light of direct experience (knowing type 2) and eventually knowing type 1. Personally, I did not do this until I was 29. My own questioning of everything I had been told arose from studying Buddhist teachings. Eventually we have to accept that the reality to many questions is simply we don’t know. What we thought we knew were in fact just deeply held and possibly uninspected beliefs
So, basically, in the meditation classes we work with level 2 knowing towards level 1 knowing. This is helped by seeing how certain level 3 knowings are nothing more than indoctrinated beliefs and can be let go of.
With respect to life ultimately being a mystery it is worth making a distinction between the unknown and the unknowable. The unknowable is the mystery of which I write and is unknowable in the sense that it can never be objective knowledge. It is always subjective in nature and cannot therefore be shared or demonstrated. The unknown is not yet known but can be known objectively, in theory, or at some point. An example might be what is feels like to ski. This may be unknown to you but it is possible for you to know it. Likewise, what it feel like to travel at a million miles an hour is unknown to every one yet it is in theory possible to know this.