The knowledge contained in this book is a great secret that hides itself. Even when it is clearly presented, it is rarely assimilated, because you need to be prepared to understand it. Ordinarily we gain knowledge by experience, but the object of this knowledge lies beyond the scope of perception and inference, the senses and the mind. To know it, another means is required. There is such a means, but it is unlikely that you have come in contact with it…until now. It is also a secret because it is extremely valuable. Things that are very valuable are not kept on the coffee table; they are locked away and are only displayed on special occasions. If you find yourself reading these words, it is an occasion to solve a problem that has been trailing you since the day you were born.

This knowledge is valuable because it eliminates suffering. This book will not tell you that you are free of suffering; it will prove that you are free. It will relieve you of your sense of smallness, inadequacy and incompleteness. When you appreciate what you are shown here, you will no longer try to be something you are not. You will no longer wonder who you are and why you are here.

The knowledge that you are about to be given is the king of all forms of knowledge because it is self shining. Other forms of knowledge do not shine on their own. But this knowledge—self knowledge—stands alone and rules all others because what you know depends on you, but you do not depend on what you know.

This rare knowledge resolves all divisions. All other forms of knowledge reinforce the duality of subject and object, the division of the knower/experiencer and the objects of knowledge/experience. It is the separation of the person you believe yourself to be and the objects of your experience—from which you gain knowledge—that causes you to experience yourself as a limited, incomplete and often inadequate being. When the knower is thought to be different from the known, each limits the other. If I do not understand that the knower is non-separate from the world, I will feel small…even though I am not small at all. And when I assume that things are divided, I become one of the divided things.