Mystic experiences are not required to know the self
I still keep having surprises: this last weekend a yoga “practitioner” told me that scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gi̅ta̅ are beliefs for which he has no interest at all, that what he cares for is only “practice”.
This is a very common patter. He wanted to convey he wanted only “experiences”. He wanted to consume more experiences. In spite of all what he had experienced over many decades, he clearly said that he wanted more experiences, new experiences, experiences where he could go consume the ”eternal”, “blissful”, “ecstatic” self.
This sounds to me like an advertisement from BMW or Coca-Cola. But it is a very good example on a very important topic about how self-knowledge is gained.
A mystic experience is not required to know the self.
There is a general assumption that we can know the self only through some kind of mystic experience that requires lots of effort, mind control, even ”supra-consciousness”. The goal for many is to reachg this so called supra-consciousness which is a state that goes beyond the mind as if the mind or the self were really separate and very far from the mind or as it were there another consciousness seating apart from consciousness, apart from oneself. For them, the mind is a real problem, so they want to switch it off so they can “experience” the self. When there is no proper understanding and a lot of demagogy, we need to question the fallacies in this kind of reasoning.
Chopping off your head does not solve the problem.
Suppose a person has a headache and goes to the doctor and the doctor says “Cut off your head, your problem will be solved” Do you think this is reasonable? Obviously not.
This is how they want to solve the problem, by chopping off the head with only mind control. And because there are so many wrong notions about the mind, they believe in mind control, which is a very lucrative business and a good way to control people. Everybody will be agree to control the mind, as if the poor mind was the responsible. This is really sad and leads to numerous problems. The mind is an instrument to know and it must be used. What needs to be eradicate are the wrong notions that are in the mind, but not the mind itself!!! And for this we need to know, to employ a means of knowledge using the mind, not cutting off the mind.
If we analyze how perception and experience works, we can easily see the limitations of perception and what the senses can gain through experiences only. Experience can give us data and examples to infer and get perceptual knowledge and we can gather lots of knowledge about objects in the world which are many and varied, but if one is serious about self-knowledge which is not an object in the world, but one self, then we should consider to employ other means of knowledge and discard the wrong notions about how self-knowledge takes place.
Bhagavad Gītā’s teachings.
Unlike other speculative teachings, or mere logic, scripture teachings such as Bhagavad Gita, that are revealed, śrutiḥ, are not the product of a single human being’s brain and do not depend upon the philosopher’s vision or point of view. Nor they speak about anything exterior to us but about one self.
They are a methodology teaching and, especially, a teaching with a sampra̅daya, with an oral tradition that is still prevalent after centuries, by getting initiated with the Lord, or for those having faith or not, by starting with the first teacher and then our teachers’ teachers. There is a tradition and a valid means of knowledge that is accepted for all the teachers. It is not the opinion or the experience of any specific individual.
Bhagavad Gītā is revealed knowledge
Bhagavad Gītā is considered by tradition and by lineages of teachers such as śruti (revealed truth such as the upaniṣ̣ads) as a means of knowledge (pra̅maṇa) and is at the same level as the Upaniṣads. It does not matter if you consider it revealed as long as you have faith and a mind that accepts that there is something to discover about yourself. The pra̅maṇa has to be used and operated and you won’t know it you don’t use the pra̅maṇa.
Prama̅ṇa, a means of knowledge.
To be a means of knowledge means to be able to eliminate ignorance (incorrect notions on one self’s) and to remove the ignorance we must gain knowledge. The problem is to discover and recognize the self which is always present as sat-cit-ananda (existence, consciousness and limitless) and is self-evident and to know it, we don’t need any specific experience nor mind-control, experience is possible because of the self, any experience is the self, the self as consciousness is always present abut not recognized due to ignorance. And ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. So we need to discover, appreciate what is the self. Nothing else.
This knowledge takes places in the intellect because there is no other place for knowledge to take place. The knowledge does not take place in the foot, in a cakra or in the heart. The mind must be ready and the person must be mature to listen, to understand and to assimilate. Lot of preparation is needed and for that we live a life of yoga and dharma
But self-knowledge needs to take place and there is no shortcut for this. The student must listen, analyze contemplate and resolve all his doubts with the teacher. And the teacher uses and the teaching tradition which is in the form of words to create the jñana vrttis that can destroy the wrong notions about one self. The teacher, the guru, is established in the vision of the truth and knows the methodology.
The knowledge does not take place in sama̅dhi or in any kind of extra-ordinary experience that you can think about it, and this is clearly said in the śṛuti. Sama̅dhi is conductive for many purposes such as antaḥ-karana-suddhi , but we still need the teaching for self-knowledge.
So many notions are there about mystic experiences and sama̅dhi. And this notions and wrong ideas create more harm than good. It destroys the capacity to think and use the given faculties to discriminate and to know.
There is a lot of confusion about this. There are entire philosophies and systems that have not understood the teachings from the revealed tradition and they are based on wrong facts and suppositions. If there is a contradiction, the śruti is the source for clarification and the best diagnosis and treatment comes from śruti which is a pra̅maṇa. The other śa̅stras are secondary. Even Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras is not at the level of śruti in terms of self-knowledge and this is recognized clearly by Sankaracarya in the Brahma Sutras.
That is why we need to know what the śruti says and to know it we need to study it in detail. If somebody talks about the scriptures, he must be able to have studied them and to know what they say in detail, otherwise is better to be silent because there is going to be interpretation and confusion coming from his own distorted ideas, prejudices and partial knowledge of the teaching. And this is what happens all the time. Anyone today picks up verses here and there and tries to justify his own point of view without respect to the teaching as a whole and without any formal and serious studies.
That is why we need to have access to teachers that are in the tradition and that are able to share the vision and the methodology. Someone like you and me who are ignorant cannot help, because self knowledge has not taken place. That is why we need the pra̅mana operated by a teacher and this is my intention in this article so you can access and discover what is to discovered.
