The Knee of Listening – The Life of Understanding

 

In this book I have had to confront a most difficult means of instruction. I have had to demonstrate my way of life in order to assert the objectivity of phenomena which neither I nor any man ordinarily would support. But, in the end, I have had to argue against the very things I have proven in my life, in order to speak the truth.

My own path began in despair. The precious religion of my youth was stolen from me by the very ones who gave it to me. Thus, I was moved to search the paths of religion and spirituality in order to ascertain whether the phenomena, the miracles, the experiences and advocations of the great paths were factual. And I found them to be so. What is called Kundalini Shakti, the universal conscious force that inspires and fills all religion and yoga and spiritual philosophy is an objective reality. Those experiences are factual and depend on no illusions in the sense of such subjective forces as belief to create or maintain them. The Kundalini or mother-Force is part of the evidence universe, as objective as any form of energy, and as external to us as the functional phenomena employed by libertines and businessmen. But, in the end, I was forced to abandon all of the sublimity. The phenomena called “spiritual” as well as those called “sinful” are all part of a spectrum which includes the whole range of experience and seeking. Reality itself is the only matter that makes a difference in the adventure of life, and it stands critically above all our efforts and all our discoveries.

Both the search for spiritual realization and the exploitation of life on a sensual level are traps. The search for experience as well as the search for liberation from the bondage to experience is all the same activity, born out of the absence of understanding, the uncreative movement that is not reality.

I have written this in the form of autobiography because my own life is perhaps the best instruction I can offer. The mere assertion of understanding is not sufficient to create understanding in the hearer. The hearer must be allowed a creative recognition. Otherwise the symbols wherein his life is trapped will not dissolve. Therefore, I have displayed my life as much as I have had patience and perspective to illustrate it. I hope it has been fruitful for you. But know this. I do not stand for spiritual efforts of any kind. Nor on some middle ground between excess and effort. There is no virtue in the endless reaction to life, nor in the exclusive enjoyment of any effect. Only understanding, only reality itself is the truth of all events. Therefore, understand. Abide in understanding as radical truth, and then never again become enamored and fascinated by any way at all. Then you will abandon the symbols of the way as freely as a child his toys. To the man who understands there is no exclusive power in any of the ultimates of life, and he will maintain his radical humor and freedom in the face of divine beings as well as the most disgusting elements of ordinary life

To this there is no way at all. It is not an attainment but a natural activity. It is creative life, perfected by no exercise, dependent on no experience, no circumstance, no force or presence. It is our only and present capability, wherein we live not as little capsules of life seeking union with what is outside or true, but as already free, including all things in the force of our being, already unlimited by any distractions, entities or functions. We are already real, and reality is understanding.

The Life of Understanding – Chapter 20 – The Knee of Listening.

***


1972

Original version – below

 


2004 (see some differences between these two versions)

The Life and Understanding of Franklin Jones

By Franklin Jones


 

“What is consciousness? This is the basic question posed in The Knee of Listening. What is consciousness? You never discover what it is by wandering in the play of life and the body-mind. You can only discover it by entering into consciousness itself, by contemplating it most profoundly, locating its Quality, Condition, Status, Force. When you have fully entered into Consciousness Itself, then suddenly the Divine Condition of everything becomes obvious”
Energy of Consciousness – 1982

“Franklin Jones is just a point, an argument not an existing person with whom we need to be very much concerned because he didn’t have any fundamental existence to begin with, and all beings, the persona, by which all beings represent themselves, have very much the same status in this world. They have no fundamental existence, they are a strategic play of suffering, of Narcissus. They must rather become the strategic play of the undoing of Narcissus. But that strategic play can’t be done by the devotee, it is done by the Guru. So it is only in the devotee that the strategic play or undoing of the persona takes place. All the concerns for the process assume the ego”.

Franklin Jones is a Fictional Character, April 1974



The Knee of Listening and Study Lesson
Contents
The Knee of Listening
1972


Available on Beezone’s Lending Library

 

Study Lessons
The Life of Understanding Series


A twelve-week course taught by Bubba Free John, Spring 1973

 

Available on Beezone’s Lending Library

 

I have written this in the form of autobiography because my own life is perhaps the best instruction I can offer. The mere assertion of understanding is not sufficient to create understanding in the hearer. The hearer must be allowed a creative recognition. Otherwise the symbols wherein his life is trapped will not dissolve. Therefore, I have displayed my life as much as I have had patience and perspective to illustrate it. I hope it has been fruitful for you. But know this. I do not stand for spiritual efforts of any kind. Nor on some middle ground between excess and effort. There is no virtue in the endless reaction to life, nor in the exclusive enjoyment of any effect…..in understanding maintain… radical humor and freedom in the face of divine beings as well as the most disgusting elements of ordinary life”
chapter 20 – Knee of Listening