I don't know!
Throughout this blog I've tried to point out how our ego thinks it knows through belief, but all beliefs are so biased. So many of them are bound to be incorrect because of bias or simply because we just can't gather and assimilate the required information to actually know. Also, so many of our beliefs are based on other beliefs that may have been incorrect in the first place. The majority of our beliefs are what we chose to believe according to our own identity's self interest anyway so they really have little credibility in the first place. Our belief in knowing keeps us from actually seeing things as they are and stops us from seeking more information. But beliefs are so important to the ego that some people rather die than give up their beliefs. Beliefs are their identity and to give them up would be to essentially die without physically dying. All egos feel this way because in a sense it is true. To give up all beliefs would be the death of the ego/identity.
A belief is a thought that we identify with as ourselves believing that it is true or correct. I've pointed out how we have so many beliefs that we don't even consider to be beliefs. Our identity considers them knowledge and truths. So many of our thoughts are based on beliefs. So many of our decisions and judgments are based on beliefs and often we think that these beliefs aren't beliefs but absolute truths. Any thought in the form of perceived knowledge is a belief if there are other possibilities. That means they need to be facts to know them, but the ego can't know anything. The concept that the ego knows something or anything is entirely false. To understand this you need to be able to see that the ego/identity is a thought construct in the mind. If you can't get past that, then you wont be able to understand that the ego can't know anything and you'll likely be blocked from experiencing your true self. Identity only believes it knows. How can a thought construct of the mind know anything? Knowing can be an even bigger identifier than believing because we think we have clear justification for knowing something. All your perceived knowledge is in your mind as memory, but the ego tries to take credit for it by saying it knows this information. You do have factual information stored in your memory but it isn't knowing that is responsible for it being there. The ego can use your awareness of that knowledge to say that it knows it, but it doesn't really know it, your awareness is simply aware of it. The ego uses the concept of knowing to be “right” in a similar way it uses belief to be “right” to further validate itself.
The ego/identity is what performs the process of believing. It is the perceived entity that believes and believes it knows. Knowing is the ego's way of taking credit for knowledge and to further validate and prove itself, but it is an even stronger attachment than beliefs because if the knowledge is irrefutable, the identity's knowledge of it can't be denied and the ego can identify with it even stronger. Well, I just denied all of the ego's so called knowledge. The ego uses knowledge to identify with memory. It also uses memory to identify with the past. The ego believes that memory is a part of itself but it clearly isn't. It would be more accurate to say that the ego is a part of memory because it is comprised of beliefs that are stored in memory. Your memory is more responsible for your ego that the ego being responsible for the memory, but then we run into the ego paradox again. I've already pointed out how the ego can be responsible for a great deal of memory but not all of it. Particular knowledge can be chosen by the ego to place into memory by determining its importance. It then says it knows it, but the information is in the memory – not in the ego/identity.
Coming from the perspective of Conscious Awareness is a completely different paradigm from the perspective of the ego/identity. Conscious Awareness perceives through awareness of what is and the resulting understanding of what is in Natural Mind. It makes no judgments. It is aware of an understanding of not knowing. This understanding is simply something that it is aware of. For the ego to realize that it doesn't know anything can scare the living day lights out of the ego. This realization can sometimes scare the ego right out of the ego. But the understanding that comes from awareness is so much more reliable than the so called knowledge that is so biased and lacking objectivity of the ego. The ego has essentially governed its entire life off of beliefs it doesn't even know. It believes it knows things that it doesn't even have the capability of knowing in the first place. It isn't even capable of knowing 2+2=4 because the ego is a manufactured phenomenon of the mind that has no basis for knowing period.
The egos perspective is based on beliefs, perceived knowledge and its judgments instead of simply what is and awareness of understanding of what is. Conscious awareness is aware of 2+2=4 but it isn't knowledge to it. It is awareness of the fact. See the difference? Conscious Awareness can be aware of all the information, facts and beliefs in memory and is aware of an understanding of it that is in the realm of natural mind. Part of that understanding is that all beliefs and the information that can be considered factual is incredibly biased because of how it was retained in the first place. Natural mind can use that awareness and its own less biased understanding to make much better decisions and conclusions with much more reliability.
When you are able to say “I don't know” about everything, it opens you up to endless possibilities. Your Natural Mind can still use all the information in memory and even beliefs to come to conclusions and decisions but it will do it with the understanding that the information is biased and it will be open to more information that isn't as biased. The greatest un-limiting belief that the natural mind can put into memory for the ego is the belief “I don't know.” It is something that natural mind is aware of but the ego/identity needs to believe for it to say "I don't know" because the ego/identity isn't even capable of knowing that. It has to believe it believes it.
“I don't know” changes the whole perspective of the ego because the ego believes it knows everything it believes and believes all the biased factual information in memory as its own knowledge. It is rather proud of its beliefs and knowledge. In fact, it is so proud of it, the ego identifies with it with pride. The ego then justifies much of what it believes with that biased information. Natural mind with conscious awareness understands that a great deal of that factual knowledge was obtained by confirmation bias so it isn't reliable. It is also aware of the fact that the factual knowledge in memory is incredibly limited and forms a limited perspective. The natural mind understands that beliefs are a belief in knowing what isn't actually known and takes that into consideration as well. So, do you want to actually be “right” more often instead of just believing you're right all the time and actually being wrong more often? Are you willing to admit you don't know to actually be aware of what actually is?
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