Have you ever felt extremely ignorant?

In answer to Quora question: "Have you ever felt extremely ignorant?"

Question details: Recently, through meditation, I have realized that I'm ignorant. A strong sense of unknowing, cluelessness, regarding existence, what or who I am. Whenever I attempt to conjure, or find out what's happening, it looks like, and possibly is, a desperate attempt to hold on.
Have you experienced this?


Thank you for the A2A Deiter.

Yes, I have experienced this many times, in many variations which felt discretely different, but which all pointed to my profound ignorance regarding some specific area, or regarding many levels of understanding at once, regarding my conceptions of self, or even regarding my mundane, reflexive assumptions about reality. At first these encounters were extremely disorienting, and I resisted them out of discomfort and fear - pushing back, denying, holding on to my previous conceptions. Over time, however, I began to relax more and more into the depth and breadth of letting go. Once I had practiced this letting go to an increasing degree and over many months, releasing all the narratives I had been clinging to so desperately became easier and more natural, and eventually something changed in me; something clicked into place that has persisted ever since. It is, I think, a new kind of sensing and knowing that has been gradually replacing all those previous conceptions with new patterns, modes and qualities of information: a new context, a new identity, a new values structure, a new way of being, new interdependencies, etc...but this, too, is a process. And, even as I sense an implicate order in this new arrangement of knowledge, I also see that it is just as fragile and fleeting as my previous conceptions; it just feels quite different, and helps me apprehend certain things more directly, without so much noise. This is all rather tenuous and difficult to describe, but if your process prods you forward in a similar fashion, then perhaps it will be fruitful for you. I would also share that the one characteristic that persists into each new horizon of knowing is compassion - for others, for myself, for the natural world and all the creatures in it...for existence as I comprehend it. I would describe this as an unfolding, enlarging and intensifying love-consciousness. I believe this is an indication that the new "patterns, modes and qualities" I am experiencing are helpful and healthy across multiple dimensions of being. However, this, too, may just be another "myth of the given," a comforting rationalization that I will one day also have to let go....

My 2 cents.

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