The mind is not the only way to know something.

Imagine a rose having self-awareness. With this self-awareness, imagine the rose taking ownership of itself, seeing itself as separate, different and special. Looking around with this self-awareness, there are times the rose feels superior and at other times inferior.

But what is the rose beyond on descriptions? What is the true essence of the rose? That’s a bit abstract and illusive, isn’t it? How would you even put into words – a rose (or anything) that is “beyond description”? What is rose-ness?

The ego is like a self-aware rose. It’s aware of itself and its personality. It takes ownership of having a “self,” and sees that self as separate, different and special. The ego looks around and feels the need to exert a sense of superiority, mainly to mask or bring some equilibrium to its feelings of inferiority.

The ego is not bad. It’s what allows each of us to have a human experience. But the ego is a product of the body and mind, and it cannot comprehend its true “self-ness,” which is not contained within and is beyond the body and mind. Your true essence is beyond description, just like “rose-ness.” The deepest truth of who you are is not comprehensible to the ego and is not contained within the body or mind.

We walk away from conversations like this because it feels too abstract and elusive. The part that wants to walk away is your ego. It wants no part of this conversation. Your ego likes the idea of the “self” being that individual/separate/special personality. The ego is threatened by the idea of a “self-ness” that is bigger than its notion of its individualized body/mind self. The ego is threatened by anything it can figure out on a mind/body level.

The truth is that you are something beyond your body and mind. You have to know this. Just because your mind can’t figure out what that is, doesn’t matter. There are other ways to know things other than the mind.

The mind is not the only way to know something. There is also intuitive knowing or tacit understanding. This kind of knowing goes like this:

I know it

I don’t know why I know it

I know it as more certain than anything I am certain of

It is inexpressible

This intuitive knowing or tacit understanding is the way we know God, truth, our deepest selves and the true nature of all things. All of these are beyond the reach of the mind.