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July 19
Our Own Experience
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Ultimate Reality is transcendental. It is not perceived by the senses or comprehended by the mind. It is a matter of indubitable experience for the inmost consciousness of man. It is directly and immediately experienced without the instrumentality of the senses and the mind, and does not depend for It's proof upon any external authority.
Swami Nikhilananda from Self-Knowledge - ATMABODHA of SHANKARACHARYA
There are some things we must experience on our own. Reading the writings of great spiritual masters can be helpful, indeed can take years off the path from ignorance to bliss; but what is essential is this inner experience. What is essential for this inner experience is a meditation practice that works for the individual.
How can we tell if our practice 'works'? First of all, we take nothing on faith. Everything must pass our own test, not the test of someone else. There are questions we can ask ourselves:
- Do we feel better after we've done the practice?
- As we meditate, do we find our quality of life improving?
- Do we have a higher capacity for enjoyment?
- Are we feeling things more deeply, more poignantly? (This is a tricky one, because true meditation, rather than taking away uncomfortable feelings as if they were never there, will help us to walk through a process of letting go in which some times we will feel like kissing the sky, and sometimes like blowing up our neighbors car. Fortunately, meditation also helps us easily to decide for the former and against the latter.)
- Do we feel that our life is moving in the direction of evolution, of progressive change?
- Do we like who we are more when we're meditating regularly, or when we're not?
- How do we feel, what is our thought-life like, compared to the week before we learned to meditate?
Do the thought experiment: in your imagination, visit yourself those days just before you learned. Offer your younger self your way of seeing the world today. See how she or he reacts. Take notes. Please write me your findings. Remember:
Ultimate Reality is transcendental. It is not perceived by the senses or comprehended by the mind. It is a matter of indubitable experience for the inmost consciousness of man.
Today I will meditate. Twice. Just as an experiment.  Bulldozer x 3, Studio City
All material copyright Jeff Kober |
