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THE NOTION OF GROWTH
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Omniscience (kevala jnana) - and also direct mental perception (manah-paryaya) - is reached through knowledge of the higher self. Knowledge of the higher self means to have a notion of the eternal, majestic being we really are beyond the limits of this universe (see 14 STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT - gunasthana 11).
Though the attainment of omniscience appears to be a far cry from our present reality, we often receive a taste of this ability. These are the moments between dream and waking, when we have not left one world completely yet while already beginning to become conscious of the other one. Here we often experience seconds or minutes where we are in command of immensely complex knowledge that would solve all riddles of the world if we could only take it with us.
Even if after waking up completely we shake our head with incredulity and store the experience in the same place as all the other strange events we cannot explain, the feeling of omniscience nevertheless has been reality. The feeling definitely occurred - however fleeting it may have been.
The fact that we are unable to carry this feeling of omniscience with us into the waking state, does not reduce its validity. We certainly can experience it in the waking state of consciousness, but first would have to significantly expand our presently rather limited capacity for insights before we could in any way use it.
It is worth while to take this taste of omniscience as an indication how natural, comfortably and without awe we handled this ability - even if only for a short time and not completely in the waking state. It tells us that omniscience is much less alien to us and much more accessible that we might ever have believed.
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