While considering the ordinary knowing function of the mind...

While considering the ordinary knowing function of the mind connected with what we receive through the senses and the rational analysis of this empirical data,4 tradition refuses to limit the role of knowledge to this level, or that of the intelligence to its analytical function.

It sees the nobility of the human intellect in its being able to attain that knowledge which is beyond time and becoming, which, rather than engrossing us ever further in the accumulation of details and facts, elevates man to the level of that illimitable Being which is the source of all existents yet beyond them.

To know that Being is to know in principle all that exists and hence to become free from the bondage of all limitative existence.5 Ordinary knowledge is of properties and conditions of things that exist. Although legitimate on its own level, it does not lead to freedom and deliverance.

On the contrary, when combined with passion, it can engross man in the web of māyā and, while leading him to ever greater knowledge of details and facts which would appear to be an expansion of his knowledge, in reality imprison him further within the limits of a particular level of cognition and also of existence. The knowledge which delivers, however, is of the root of existence itself.

It is based on the fundamental distinction between Ātman and māyā and the knowledge of māyā in the light of Ātman. It is principial knowledge, the Lā ilāha illa‘Llāh, which containing all truth and all knowledge, also delivers from all limitation. To know existence through the piercing light of intelligence is to be free from concern with the limited type of knowledge which engrosses but does not liberate the mind.

In order for knowledge to deliver, it must be realized by the whole man and engage all that constitutes the human microcosm. Intellectual intuition, although a precious gift from Heaven, is not realized knowledge. The truth held in the mind, although it is the truth and therefore of the highest value, is one thing and its realization another.6 Realized knowledge concerns not only the intelligence which is the instrument par excellence of knowing but also the will and the psyche.

It requires the acquisition of spiritual virtues which is the manner in which man participates in that truth which is itself supra-human. Realized knowledge even affects the corporeal realm and transforms it.