There are two drawbacks of not-knowing. First, the tumescent mind does not get the gratification it wants in being able to respond immediately. The tumescent mind doesn’t care if the emblem of the Erotic state is excellence, or that being on the spot is the pinnacle of excellence. The hallmark of a tumescent mind is transaction, reactivity, or passivity with a trajectory moving toward exhaustion as it attempts to touch the Erotic state. Instead, the first movement must be surrender, and from there, we can sink into not-knowing.
In Orgasmic Meditation (OM), both people have to sink into the not-knowing state until that state can find the connection that informs them of the next right stroke. In the process of creation, this novel state of not-knowing must be primary. When we can hold ourselves in that space, the process of creation is excellent. When we do not, the process is just reactive or forced action. The tumescent mind gets caught in its own cycle of scrambling; it feels the problem and wants to fix it. However, the issue is the tumescent mind keeps us from the truth of the moment, and the tumescent mind does not want to fix itself.
The second and more difficult part of honoring the not-knowing state is that we lose our right to anger. In losing shame, we recognize that anything someone has done wrong came from ignorance, or not knowing that they don’t know. In this recognition, the agreement is to acknowledge everyone would do the most loving thing if they could. And if they don’t, it’s because they don’t know a better way to respond. With this understanding, the only response is compassion. We start to wonder why we would ever be angry or punitive.
The effective response is to help them understand if they are open to it. However, if they are coming from an intractable, heavily conditioned mind, then they may not be able to receive any kind of countering to their point of view. If this is the case, the most effective response is to withdraw ourselves but still send compassion because not-knowing in a way that they don’t know that they don’t know is an unbearable and painful experience.
When the self is in that deepest place of surrendering to not-knowing, that is when it actually has access to knowing. But the only way to reach this wisdom is through surrender.