Connaissance Connaissance

How do we define knowledge? Knowledge is the knowledge of what is “behind”, the knowledge of the connection, the access of one’s own consciousness to the non-obvious. The German word Wissen has its roots in Latin and ultimately in Sanskrit, in Indo-Germanic. It comes from the Latin word videre = to see and ultimately also from the Sanskrit word “Veda”. The Vedas, those ancient Indian knowledge scriptures dealing with the spiritual and occult interrelationships of the universe, are arguably the most profound sketches of the non-obvious available to us today.

Knowledge or realisation of what lies beyond the visible surface is one of the most fascinating phenomena of ourselves and our creation. The general idea about the mechanism of the phenomenon of knowledge, namely that our mind “produces” knowledge and by thinking at that, is certainly not true. Animals also have knowledge and have not acquired this through thinking. An orangutan has an absolutely exact knowledge of the position of about 50,000 individual trees that are in its territory, and its mind has not produced this knowledge, nor has it acquired it by thinking. So quite obviously, at least memory works without thought. Elephants are also said to have a proverbial memory, and again we assume that elephants do not think.
But not only memory, also the comprehension of contexts seems to function without thoughts. The coordinated hunting behaviour of marine mammals such as dolphins or orcas often requires a very fine and clear understanding of interrelationships, and again, we do not assume that these animals acquire their knowledge through reflection. They clearly have a mechanism for their consciousness to attain a state of knowledge without thought. Even with us humans, thinking as a process of finding knowledge is often not the decisive tool. In a thoughtless state, when we can push all thoughts aside, we attain cognitive clarity much more easily than by dwelling on chains of thoughts. Thoughts can only ever comment on knowledge or assign it, but they actually have nothing to do with the process of finding knowledge, rather they are a hindrance to it. Real cognition is a direct grasping of consciousness of a connection that is behind the surface and presumably works in the same way as grasping connections in the obvious. When an orangutan sees trees and stores the knowledge of their position, the process of storing this knowledge is certainly the same as when a scientist arrives at a knowledge or when an Indian rishi arrives at a knowledge of an occult connection of this universe. Both memory and the storage of knowledge are supraphysical processes that simply run with a certain mechanics. We can now argue whether the electro-chemical processes in our brain cells are the main organisers of this process or whether they are merely a physical concomitant and manifestation of an essentially non-physical mechanism. But this discussion is not very purposeful. Ultimately, it is irrelevant for the actual state of our knowledge how we store our knowledge and how our memory functions, as long as both still work well. The decisive factor is the process of acquiring knowledge.

How does consciousness attain cognition? This is the crucial question. It can be assumed that the storing of knowledge by the consciousness as well as the process of grasping knowledge is the same with the orangutan as with the scientist who suddenly discovers and “understands” a context or as with a sage who discovers and “understands” a profound context in his meditation. In all three cases, the consciousness recognises something and absorbs it. In the case of the orangutan, this recognition takes place through the sense organs. In the case of the meditating sage, the recognition takes place via an “inner seeing”, which certainly, as in the case of the orangutan, also takes place without thoughts. In the case of the scientist, cognition presumably takes place just as much via direct thoughtless “seeing”. But the scientist is probably so caught up in his classifying mind that his thinking immediately picks up on the process, comments on it and assigns it to other findings. Therefore, the scientist does not really see the actual process of cognition, but only the thoughts, which more or less simultaneously wrap the cognition in mental wrapping paper and sell it as a product of the mind. However, the actual process of cognition is not a thinking process, but perhaps rather a direct seeing about a hidden inner unity of being that we have with everything that exists.

And this is where it gets really interesting. The attempt to get behind the surface and to grasp connections with “supraphysical” senses that are not obvious is certainly one of the most exciting things we can do. The ancient Indian sages of the time of the Vedas and Upanishads had developed a path of knowledge, a science of knowledge, so to speak, which had as its main objective the grasping of knowledge or cognition. This inner science was called or is called Jnana Yoga. The technique of this science was to first abolish all thoughts and create a thought-free state of inner vision. Once this state was reached, one could grasp one’s own “self”, which is normally obscured by our thoughts. If one had achieved a clear, conscious access to one’s own self, if one had advanced so far with one’s consciousness that the self, which perceives the consciousness, and the consciousness, which is perceived by the self, had merged into one, then one automatically had access not only to the self, but to everything else. For the self, according to the knowledge of the ancient Vedas and Upanishads, is only a “Divine Spark”, a part of the Divine Whole, a part of an underlying unity of God and Creation.

In Chinese mythology, the same process of consciously grasping the underlying unity is beautifully demonstrated with the concept of Tao, whereby Laotse and his successors managed to keep the mental explanations and thought constructs, which immediately pounce on any cognition with commentary, far more in check than their Indian counterparts were able to do. The Indian Vedas, Upanishads and Samkhya philosophy are probably the deepest knowledge scriptures available to us today. But the ancient Chinese texts of Laotse present the realisation of the underlying whole even without commentary, without explanation, without embedding it in contexts. Lao Tzu’s statement ultimately consists of only three aspects: There exists an all-encompassing One (the Tao) – One can consciously grasp this all-encompassing One (Tao) – The state of consciously grasping the Tao is the most valuable thing there is.

The method or technique of jnana yoga, the science of knowledge, the sharpening of the supraphysical sense organs, which can grasp all that lies beyond sense perception, is arguably the ultimate art of self-discovery, involving a finding of all other, whether that other lies on this side or beyond our current limits of consciousness.

Thus, the Connaissance watch is the last model in the series of five watches of the Niveau élevé brand. It is the symbol of knowledge and that knowledge which reaches beyond our thought loops, without limitation, without warning that we are diving too deeply into the unfathomability of this world, which is only the surface of the beyond.

Through clarity (lucidity) we reach internalisation (introsistence), further to determination (determination) to realisation and finally to cognition (connaissance). The goal of the Way of the Five watches would then be the state of “Niveau élevé”, of “elevated consciousness”, which is above time in the full realization of the Self.

The Connaissance is only available with an automatic movement and a sapphire crystal on the case back, which allows a view into the mechanics of the watch. The case is a combination of straight and curved side edges, which thus represent both the square and the circle, and in the combination of these two perfect but opposite shapes symbolise knowledge or full knowledge.