As I continue to prepare for both the Reval and Ascension, I look deeper and deeper into one particular matter.
The matter is how I can know something unless I’ve done/tried/experienced it myself.
When we say something is “in the eye of the beholder” or “it takes one to know one,” we’re referring to what I’m talking about.
I see that, while my having tried or experienced something myself is crucial to my deep understanding of it, the levels of knowledge also come into play.
And that is only if I’m making the claim that I “know” that thing or event (phenomenon). (1)
If I’m not making the claim to “knowing” it, but simply reporting what I’ve read or heard, well, in that case, the value of my information drops off significantly (in spiritual terms).
The value of what I’ve read (book knowledge) is less compared to the value of what I “know” (direct, realized knowledge).
Let me call the first the reporter and the second the realizer.
In my scheme of things, there are three levels of knowledge.
The first is the intellectual. Both people who are reporting what they’ve read or heard and those who claim to know but are only sharing ideas are operating on the intellectual level.
For the most part, I think the world operates on an intellectual level. I think it could also be said that more men are intellectual; more women are experiential.
Compared to higher forms of knowledge, intellectual knowledge is safer. There’s less emotional investment. The claims to know, when based solely on this, are more modest. We may play safe by remaining intellectual.
But it’s also as dry as oatmeal compared to the juiciness and awesomeness of higher forms of knowing. Truth can be found on the intellectual path, but it’s a drier path. Not as satisfying as the other two higher forms of knowledge.
The next more intense, more revealing level is the experiential. We’ve actually experienced what we’re talking about and so, on that basis, we say we “know” it.
The information, awareness, and knowledge have been impacted by an internal experience – the emotions and divine qualities may stir. We may be horrified or wafted aloft in bliss.
Whatever else it may do, this deepens the experience and etches it on our memory. It’s also the seed that can lead to a vasana or core issue, whether a pleasant or unpleasant vasana. This feels far more real than mere ideas.
In many a Hollywood movie does the experientialist grow impatient with the intellectual. It’s a favorite gag but there’s some truth to it.
Experience satisfies more than ideas; as Werner Erhard said, the person who lives on ideas alone is eating the menu instead of the meal.
The experientialist says: I saw it myself. I heard it myself. I smelt it. I felt it. It’s gotten inside of me and touched me. I can vouch for the thing’s identity, qualities, etc. This knowledge is more certain that mere ideas. But it’s not the end.
The most intense and revealing level of knowledge that I’m aware of is realization.
(Concluded in Part 2, below.)
Footnotes
(1) I use quotation marks to emphasize that “knowledge” has many meanings. The only one I’m concerned with is knowledge that leads to a realization of the truth.