Deepwater

What is the nature of experience? Some quotes collected from Anandavala and a variety of other sources may help us understand this phenomena that we call experience:

“The real test of anything is direct experience and mystics throughout history have experienced the universal consciousness as their inner most Self and there are clear and mature methods for attaining this experience. It only requires self-honesty, self-enquiry and self-awareness. A confused and agitated mind cannot approach such an experience no matter how much it fills itself with intellectual knowledge. An educated mind is irrelevant in attaining direct experience; one needs a still, clear and subtle awareness. But if one is entangled in intellectual confusions then a little intellectual clarification can help one realise the reality of the mystic path and the benefits of calming and clarifying awareness.” Quoted from www.anandavala.info

” The ego and vanity in man often stand in the way of his acceptance of the position that super-ordinary consciousness, to which he is a total stranger, can be possible for some members of the species to which he belongs. This frame of mind is often pronounced in scholars who fondly believe that more and more extensive knowledge of the world and its infinitely varied phenomena provided by poring over vast libraries of books, is the only expansion and advancement possible to the human mind. It cannot but be repugnant to a polymath to be told that there is a learning beyond his grasp, that the very nature of the mind can change and can soar to normally super-sensible planes of being, which are inaccessible to the keenest intellect, however well informed and penetrating it might be.” (Gopi Krishna from ‘The Wonder Of The Brain’)

A full discussion on the nature of experience is  An Information System Analysis of Mind, Knowledge,’The World’ and Holistic Science.

 Another document worth reading on the topic of experience is Being in the World
both published by Anandavala.