Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

interpreted certain words. If the knowledge of the Self isn't mediate,intellectual knowledge what kind is it?EXPERIENCE VERSUS KNOWLEDGESome claim enlightenment can't be experienced, others that it can. Ifenlightenment is described as an experience, a transaction between subjectand object, it is a peculiar kind of experience. Ordinary experience is astraightforward interaction between a human being and the world. If themind, consciousness with a small "c," the subject, is a gross and limitedtransformation of Pure Consciousness, how will it fully know or experiencePure Consciousness, the Self in its unlimited form? 11 Just as the senses can'texperience the mind, nor the material world the senses, so the mind/egoentity can't “experience” the Self.According to spiritual science everything is Consciousness, even thematerial world, an effect of which Consciousness is the cause. But asConsciousness involves itself with itself as matter, its "light" apparently getsabsorbed into the object and, on the physical level at least, stops shining. Forexample, even though light reflecting off my body falls equally on a mirrorand the black wall on which it hangs, I will only see myself in the mirror. Italso gets absorbed into a mind clouded with emotion and thought, making itunexperiencable for all intents and purposes. It can, however, be“experienced” in a pure mind.The non-experience school claims the Self is the “light” illumining allexperiences. Humans, they say, are two-tiered: existing on one level as asubject interacting with objects, which necessarily means experience, and onanother as Consciousness, the "Light" that illumines the subject'sexperiences. So in scriptural literature you will find definitions of the Self astranscendent, beyond, uninvolved, and unattached to anything, living in itsown hermetically sealed world, the shining world of knowledge, unaware ofanything other than itself or, as the witness to outer events.Many in the spiritual world, unaware of this fact, incorrectly believethe ego will experience enlightenment like it experiences everything else. Soto save them the grief of trying to "get" a mind-blowing cosmicenlightenment experience, the knowledge people point out that enlightenmentis not that type of experience. Mind-blowing blissful cosmic experiences,which come by the grace of God, not individual effort, are simply mind-11 Consciousness capitalized refers to the Self. Without capitals it refers to the mind.9