Does the universe know itself?

This seems to me to be the crux of the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism.

In very alert, self conscious states when Now is vivid it appears as though the very presence of the universe is aware of itself.

There is the dark dream of unillumined and unenlightened existence where everything just rolls from one thing to the next with no moment of apprehension to anchor it in the present. These states know things, but do not know themselves.

You can suddenly awaken from the dark states into a moment of wow this is now and "I AM."

Examining that immediate apprehension we are no longer relative. It is not like we need to know yesterday or tomorrow to get to Now. Now is Now, it is self sustaining and self defining. You only need to apprehend the present to be grounded in a solid unquestionable existence that exists by itself. All relative things like what I am are irrelevant to the Present. The Present does not know whether you are tall or short, or good or bad, or names this or that, or have this history or that history. It is not relative. It just is.

So it seems that the Now is self knowing. It stands upon itself.

But this is the issue.

Is not such a sense of the Now standing upon itself already a step away from the Now into the relative?

By the time we think "I AM" we are already very relative. We are saying this is "me" and not "you." So by the time we get there we are already out of the Present back into Darkness.

Now Hindu yogis say, okay that is Darkness but it is almost Dawn because we are a step away from the non-relative. Following the lead of the "I AM" into the Present experience we start to see that this "I" is not relative. It has no history, it has no qualities and it has no name. It is just Now.

So there is the difference because the Hindus take this depersonalised "I" as a universal I beyond the "I" that has a history and a name.

When we ask "who" of this I we don't have anything to say. There are no qualities.

Hindis argue this wholess "I" is "God" and has personality.

But following the logic here to give it any quality is to make it relative and so back into Darkness.

So while this is not something we can reason about, it can perhaps we a warning that the moment we think we know the Absolute we are already in darkness.

Which leaves only one possibility.

That moment of Now which is pure and truly present is not knowledge. And if it is not knowledge it cannot know itself.

If there is any knowing involved it is already relative and seeking discernible qualities (relative to other things).

Reasonably then we can say that universe does not know itself. It just is itself. And, an authentic experience of the Now is not even an "experience" it is just the Now. By the time we know what is going on we have slipped into the relative. and that is the source of the Ego because we can then argue "who is knowing." And that leads immediately to the classic comedy trip all novice Guru's make of thinking that "they have achieved realisation." Open an ashram and "help" other people. This is all relative. Buddha reminds people that he saved no one. Sure all this relative happens, but it is not brightness it is the darkness.

There is no attainment, because there is nothing to attain and no one to attain it.