To be cognisant of an event is to have that event in reflective consciousness. Reflection is already secondary, so what is primary? It can't be the event, but some sort of unreflecting knowing prior to the event and out of which the event is formed in awareness. You know this, but don't know you know it, you know it but not by the means by which you know things. This is where you must part ways from thought. This is not obscure but concealed beneath what is most taken for granted, immediate but so banal in appearance that it is overlooked, even if you spend a lifetime theorising about it. Only once look and see for yourself.