The Cosmic Bicycle.

Words, and knowing, are what we use to describe the physical realm.
Awareness, and not-knowing, are what we must use when we venture beyond the physical.
By beyond the physical, I mean: beyond what can be known.
To travel beyond the Event Horizon requires a different level of knowing...

The most difficult task, is to describe the interface between the two.

Knowledge is similar to technique.
In acquiring the technique needed to ride a bicycle, one struggles with what seems an impossible task.
Suddenly, after enough damage has been taken, after enough scrapes and bruises have been sustained, one suddenly breaks through the technique, into the realm of knowing-how.
Once one knows how to ride a bicycle, one never again gives a thought to the technique.

In essence, the probable purpose of knowing, is not an end in itself.
Knowledge is of little use without a context.
The probable purpose of knowing, is to know how to know.
Knowing how-to-know is what I believe Lao Tzu often referred to as not-knowing.

A child is unable to construct a great pyramid.
He starts out by building sand castles.
He learns from his experiences.
He goes on to build card-houses, and matchstick-houses.
When enough things have been built, and enough about each attempt's shortcomings discovered, quite suddenly the child will know how to build things.

There will be little of the card house, manifested in the great pyramid.
But certainly the card house was a part of the process.

Learning to ride a bicycle is not a lot different.
Learn the technique. Use the technique. Forget about the technique. Ride the bicycle.

In order to fully know a thing, one must become the thing.
Merely observing it is not enough.
As long as we are seperated from what we wish to know, we will never know it.

Scientists tend to defeat themselves.
By discarding the mystical in favour of scientific knowledge, they attempt to know the nature of a thing by only observing a part of that thing.
In order to know a thing, the thing - in its entirety - must be observed.
And beyond knowing a thing, to enter the realm of not-knowing it, and to - in fact - become it.

So take another look at your old bicycle.
It may not have occurred to you that it was a starship, all along.
Clean it up. Oil the chain. Check the brakes. Take a deep breath.
And, as the English are sometimes fond of saying:

"On yer bike!"