There is a recurrent idea that what this is consists of two parts, an underlying layer or basis of reality and an overlay of beliefs and theories about that reality. According to this notion, the knowing, the knower and the known all have their place within the upper layer which is a region in which radical changes of the form of the known and of the perspective from which it is viewed are possible. The base is unknowable because it doesn't share in the common nature of the knowing, but it is indispensable in this way of thinking both because it provides a structuring orientation for the ideal layer, enables one set of formations to be more real than another without either of them being entirely real at all, and because at the core of the knower there is subjectivity which entirely escapes theorisation and hence change. As soon as it is stated in this way it becomes clear that the goal is to bring the subject into direct relation with reality, or back into such direct relation as if they had been sundered at some time; or indeed it is better to say that the subject could never have been separate from reality and that the illusion of this separation exists only in the layer of appearance and is due to the error of equating the apparent knower with the subject. Only in this way could the apparent knower seem to be in bondage and be sustained by the futile quest to escape it.