The Creation

Inner Cosmos, Tapestry by Maximo Laura, Peru

One of the strange thing about experience, we noticed, is that it is ever changing. In fact, no change means no experience. So change, even though not existing independently from experience, is fundamental. It deserves the title of Truth. When we observe closely, we find that what is changing is patterns, all kinds of patterns. That gives us some clues about the manifested reality, because, manifestation is nothing but patterns, all kinds of patterns.

The Experience

After dissecting the Experiencer, we take a look at the other aspect of the Presence - the Experience. We immediately find that the Experience part is much more exciting, happening, rich and very mysterious. It is all that is manifested.

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.

The Ultimate Truth

The Ultimate Truth is that there is experience and an experiencer. There is nothing beyond that, and even this apparent duality is an act of mind. When merged together, the experience and the experiencer are reduced to just Experiencing, a dynamic Presence.

Obstacles and Their Cures: Part-5

Extraordinary experiences: of heavenly kind is just another weapon the Mind uses to distract a seeker. May be it is a side effect of getting aware of the larger universal Mind, and various hidden realms of the Mind start showing up during meditation, or sometimes even in the normal waking state. Initial newbie experiences are typically lights, sounds and bodily sensations. Later on people report a sense of connectedness, infinity, oneness, being the almighty creator of everything, world may start appearing like a dream, aversion from worldly existence, indifference towards daily activities like eating, working or talking to others, so on and so forth.

Well, that sounds like progress, how can it all be obstacles? What happens is, seekers hear about such experiences and immediately judge themselves as lacking cool stuff. I want what the other has – is the feeling and desire. They start hankering after such experiences. They cling to the tiniest of straw if that assures them that they are making progress. They seek confirmation, they brag about their “achievements”. They treat them like trophies or currency in their bank account. They immediately get jealous of those who have more. They look down on those who did not see all those fireworks in the mind. They feel the need to be special. A fancy experience proves for them that they are “enlightened” now, and nothing more needs to be done. Of course, except getting more experiences of “spiritual” type.

Presence, Experience and Knowledge

By Salvador Dali

Experiencing as being

I'm very very sure of one thing - something exists. Actually that's all I'm sure of. I have no other knowledge, no other experience of which I’m so sure of. I'm going to define that "something" as Presence. Its merely a term I'm going to use for something that I'm so sure of. The Presence is going through a process, which I'm going to call Experiencing, and an Experience is then defined as an arbitrary slice of Experiencing. I can’t deny that there is Experiencing of Presence, however hard I try, and no one can. Denial or falsification is also an experience, and that makes it absolutely undeniable that there is Experiencing and/or Presence. What can be so convincing, so solid, so self-evident? So we are on a very firm ground here, it’s a good place to start, perhaps it’s the only place to start.

The modulations in Presence give rise to Experiencing. That's all there is, rest is merely details. Don't ask me what this thing called Presence is, and why are there any modulations or changes in it at all, how and why is this happening.... I have no idea. Grab a good book on Metaphysics to know what the great masters think about all this. I can assure you that nobody knows. Its paradoxical that something so evident and intimate is absolutely unknowable ! Well, welcome to the country of mystics, this is not your first surprise....