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HERMANN KUHN
SUTRAS
In the Western hemisphere of the world we usually regard knowledge as the constantly growing mass of external information. The sheer volume of this data alone seems to make any comprehensive cognition impossible.
But this type of external data is not what the Tattvarthasutra conceives as knowledge.
The Tattvarthasutra regards knowledge as the basic nature of our consciousness. Knowledge is such a fundamental and inseparable feature of individual consciousness that it encompasses the source and totality of all knowledge within itself.
All external information recorded in books or other storage media has no impact on us as long as we do not actively integrate it into our consciousness. All formal learning remains without effect as long as we do not transform it into individual experience.
Only when we apply knowledge to expand our range of experience, - only when we use it actively to understand more of our world and to reflect and change our own activities and attitudes, - then only knowledge becomes an integrated part of our life. We then stop viewing it as something new or special, but apply it without being particularly aware of it. Without this integration into our individual consciousness and experience, knowledge does not become alive, but remains a separate component in our life.
Knowledge - as the Tattvarthasutra describes it - is primarily the ACTIVE experience of consciousness. In this it is highly subjective and individual. The mass of data the West interprets as knowledge is at best raw material that first needs to be transformed into lively, active knowledge by individual experience before it can become relevant to us.
But the Tattvarthasutra goes far beyond this understanding. It states that every individual manifestation of consciousness (i.e. every living being) carries ALL knowledge that can possibly be known always within.
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