Notion of Growth

Author(s): Hermann Kuhn
Publisher: Crosswind Publishing Germany

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Hermann Kuhn
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, - i.e. when we use it to understand more of the events around us and to reflect and change our own activities and attitudes, - then only knowledge becomes an integrated part of our life. We then stop considering it as something new or special, but apply it without being particularly aware of it most of the time. Without this integration into individual consciousness and experience, knowledge does not become lively, but remains segregated from our life.
The Jains regard knowledge that is relevant for life as an individual, subjective and active experience of consciousness. The mass of external information that the West interprets as knowledge is at best raw material that needs to be transformed into lively, active knowledge by individual experience before it can become relevant to us.
But the Jains go far beyond regarding knowledge as an integral feature of our consciousness. To them every individual manifestation of consciousness (.e. every living being) carries ALL knowledge that can possibly be known always within.
Wherever we are, the entirety of all knowledge is always with us. The fact that we do not perceive this at present, is caused by our own prejudices, errors, misconceptions and erroneous beliefs what knowledge is all about and how it is gained - i.e. by karmic mechanisms that block our very access to knowledge. Once we remove these blocks, our awareness begins to reach into regions previously inaccessible. Any event at any location may then make us aware of the new areas now available to us.