The Life of Understanding Series
(The Way of Understanding)
“It has taken me at least thirty-one years to produce this book. If I were an Avatar or one of the eternal Siddhas I would have made it for you as soon as my faculties were fit to write. But I had to learn it all instead according to the condition of our usual birth. This has also determined the symbol and subject matter through which I must interpret this learning to you. For every word I will speak has a peculiar history in my own life of understanding. Thus, I will write you my autobiography, because my past cannot be separated from this truth. My living has revealed it to me, and the form of my life is the necessary bearer of what I would communicate. But my purpose is not to fascinate you with my own experience. And, since I am practically unknown, there is no public reason at all why you should want to hear the details of my birth and present age, my childhood, my psychological development, my education and employment, loves and all the rest of my adventure here.” – ‘The Knee of Listening’, Preface, 1972 edition.
Listen
The beginning of the book is not page nine, beginning the Life of Understanding, a biographical section, the beginning of the book is the prologue, the Heart of Understanding, And this prologue contains a thesis and a claim, which is the central proposition of the entire book, And that’s why it’s here, So it would be appropriate to read it, “Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life.”
This is a thesis and a claim. An unusual one, How could death be acceptable to life? It seems to be the opposite to life. How could it be acceptable to consciousness. It seems to contradict consciousness, So this is an unusual claim, a paradoxical claim. Death is utterly acceptable to consciousness and life.
Lessons on the Knee of Listening
A twelve week course taught by Franklin Jones