The Experiencer

The Ultimate Truth is that there is experience and there is an experiencer. Everything else is details. We can now descend into the details, not much, just the important ones. We will start with the Experiencer and note some of its characteristics by direct observation.

Paradox

By Hans Kanters

The following content is an expanded form of a forum post.

The whole point of the path of knowledge is to arrive at perfect answers. By perfect I mean those that are obvious, self-evident and based on direct experience, direct knowing, and sound reason and logic. However, a seeker will soon encounter serious issues if he tries to be so strict and rigid. He may find that there are many answers, all of them can be called perfect in above sense. Sometimes they are contradictory, and still make sense. Soon he will find that this is the norm, not an exception. Almost everything is a paradox.

Introspection - 2 : Experiencing Change

Goal

We will attempt to experience change directly. We will try to see where this change happens and how it gets interpreted by the mind.

Prerequisites

Everything as before, plus it is best seen where there is some activity, such as a public place, but not too crowded or noisy.

Question - what is happening? 

Simply observe everything in an inclusive way, as was done for the previous introspection. There is Presence and there is Self as usual. Since the enquiry is formulated in a particular way, your attention will be drawn to differences in the experiences or activity. Do not name or describe them, just observe neutrally.

This introspection shows you something extraordinary - there is Change. The experiences are never the same. Some things change slowly such as your house and some change quickly such as the traffic outside on the road.

Introspection - 1 : Experiencing the Self

Goal

We will attempt here to gain a direct experience of the Self. It takes only a few minutes. It will answer the questions such as – who am I or what am I or what is this whole existence. The knowing is instantaneous but when the mind comes back, it finds it hard to accept it, at least in case of some people. The reason can be presence of beliefs, beliefs such as it cannot be so simple. And doubts like – its all fine, but …. (insert a question based on some random belief).

Prerequisites

Just an open, sharp, peaceful and intelligent mind. Absence of distractions, at least for a few minutes. Brutal honesty. Deactivation of beliefs, if any, at least for a while. Avoid making anything up, assumptions, hypotheses, guesses and all. It has to be very direct and self-evident.

Read the last article on The Art of Introspection for details on how to do it without getting lost or confused. Your gains will totally depend on these prerequisites, else its all just gibberish.

The Path of Books

If for some reason a student does not find a suitable teacher, he need not lose all hope. Most of the teachings are available in written form. These days the teachings are also available in audio or video form, which is as good as being with a teacher and is perhaps better than books in terms of sensory satisfaction. There is tons of material on the internet in various formats. Some teachers are also available via emails or other communication apps. The information is widespread, in fact, there is an excess of it. It all appears voluminous but most of it is repetition of the same few ideas, interpretations, and reinterpretations, commentaries and perspectives.

This was not the case in past, when such information was held secret. The world has changed and the teachings are no more hidden in secret places, meant for special people only. Most of them are freely available to anyone who is interested. So why don't people simply read those books etc. and get rid of their ignorance and suffering, why are the majority not free? Because just like a teacher, books only point towards the knowledge, they do not transmit knowledge, they transmit only information, written symbols. Knowledge requires a direct seeing, an experience. We have seen that merely gaining knowledge does not do much either, the clouds of habitual ignorance cover up any faint light of knowledge gained via reading very quickly.

Afflictions of the Mind : Part - 4.1 (The Prison of Beliefs)

4. The Prison of Beliefs

Plato's Cave by Lalita Hamill

4.1 What is a Belief?

We have already discussed beliefs previously in brief. Here I’m going to peel the onions, do hair splitting and perform surgery on them. This is needed because beliefs are one of the most dangerous afflictions of the Mind. A belief is an assumption, an unfounded idea. It masquerades in the form of knowledge. It is a partial or false knowledge, a structure in the Mind, that lacks solidity of experience to support it. A belief is an epitome of ignorance. These will serve as some definitions for the term belief [1].

A belief is a poor substitute for knowledge. If I tell you a story, which is beyond your experience, you have only two options, either to believe it or disbelieve it. Any of them are not going to take you anywhere. I want you to know.
- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (Paraphrased)

If you look at beliefs via the microscope of self-observation, you will find that they are mental structures called Concepts. So a belief is not a new entity, it is just an idea, a concept, a higher level abstraction. So why do we need a new word, a new definition? Because a belief is a concept that is erroneous. It is an assumption that takes the form of knowledge. It does not come from experience. A concept that is firmly founded on direct experience is knowledge. When you see beliefs, you will find no solid experiences, no impressions, no memories, no logical chains of thought there, they just simply hang in air.A belief is never founded on experience, it is derived from other sources. It can also be an erroneous interpretation of an experience, which again means that the interpretation is unfounded. A belief can be based on other beliefs, which makes the matter more convoluted, because the person may believe that it is based on a fact, and so is a fact. It is easy to get lost in the jungle of beliefs.