Experience

Experience (Skt. अनुभव, Anubhav) is that which is appearing.

That which is manifested.

That which is apparent.

That which is witnessed by the Experiencer.

That face of the Existence which is false or illusory.

Establishing the Experience

Since Existence has been defined as everything, all that is, and since in this completeness, there are infinite possibilities, including the possibility of it being manifested. Since the Existence is directly known only when it is manifested, and since it is known, manifestation is a certainty. The way it manifests itself is Experience.

Denial of Experience using sentences such as "There is no Experience" is an experience itself. Therefore its denial actually establishes it. Experience is self evident.

However, there is no possibility of establishing the Experience independently of the Experiencer. It can be said that it is there only because it is being witnessed. There can be no Experience without the Experiencer. There will be nothing to witness without the witnessing or without that which witnesses it.

It is not a surprise because the Experience is just another aspect of the Existence, the first being the Experiencer. They are one and the same, and the difference is only apparent. As we have seen in the case of Experiencer, when this differentiation is not present, we can call Experience as Experiencing, which is another name for Existence itself.

Analysis

Analysis of Experience can be done on the basis of seven basic questions. Here some conclusions are stated in brief, the full analysis can be seen in detail on these links.

Essence of Experience: is emptiness.

Cause of Experience: is acausal.

Generation of Experience: is nonprocedural.

Place of Experience: is nonlocal.

Time of Experience: is nontemporal.

Personality of Experience: is impersonal.

Number of Experiences: is one.

There is no surprise that the conclusions are exactly same as those for the Experiencer. This firmly establishes the unity of both. The Experience and the Experiencer are just names of one - the Existence. There are no two.

Nature of the Experience

We can immediate see some gross qualities of the Experience. However, these cannot be called qualities, they represent the nature of the Experience. These never change.

Experience is impermanent. It is continuously changing. It is flowing. It is a happening. It is never static. It can be shown that without this change, there can be no Experience. So change and Experience are one. Change is the nature of Experience.

Experience is an illusion. According to the set criteria for truth, since it is that which changes, it is false. That which appears as an Experience is illusory. Since no part of it is permanent, all of it is false.

Experience is infinite, but appears finite. Since infinity cannot be witnessed, and since there are infinite possibilities, in order for them to be witnessed, they must appear as finite but changing. If the Experience is finite and unchanging, it will not be infinite. So change is an outcome of this necessity that it must remain infinite but still must be witnessed as finite. This is possible only if it changes. It changes in infinite ways. We know it in terms of one finite slice at a time.

Experience is continuous. There are no breaks in it. The events seem to start and end at arbitrary points, but the whole of Experience is beginningless and endless.

Experience is unknowable. Since all knowledge is based on experiences, and since all of them are false, nothing about any experience what so ever is truly knowable. As unknowability is the quality of the Existence, it is not surprising that the Experience, which is merely an aspect of it, is also unknowable. What happens to our knowledge? As we have noted, all knowledge is Negative Knowledge. Any positive knowledge would be purely relative, i.e. will be based on an assumption that the Experience is true. Hence all of our knowledge is relative. There is no absolute knowledge, and certainly, there is no absolute knowledge of the Experience. It can be said that, since it is not true, there is nothing there, and so there is nothing to know, and hence nothing can be known, and nothing is known. This justifies the Agnostic position nicely.

Experience appears in an organised way. Probably this is the only surprise we have here, it is more or less organised. Anything which is completely random will not be experienced. Since it is being experienced, it is certainly organised. Only the levels of organisation vary. Some of it is more organised, some is less organised. However, there remains a possibility of randomness since the Existence has all possibilities. We do not know of the randomness, or we consider pseudorandomness as true randomness, because there is no possibility of knowing the true randomness. If it is there, it will never be witnessed. We are going to examine the organised part in much more detail in this wiki.

Experience appears to be rule bound. This is a direct outcome of there being organisation, or low entropy in the Experience. Rules give it an appearance of "reality". We have a tendency to assume that if it is rule bound, it must be real (or true), and that which is unruly must be false. But this assumption is proven incorrect by simple observations such as a video game or a movie, which are rule bound, but are completely false. On the other hand, experiences like dreams do display some rules and organisation, and appear to have a meaning while they are being experienced, but we have a tendency to brand these dreams as false. It is obviously just indoctrination.

Unification of Experiences

This page is under construction !

Models of Experience

There being a possibility of it being organised in some form, gives rise to a possibility for constructing models of it in order to understand the Experience better. Models of Experience provide us with a logical way to study it. This study of illusion will be the sciences and they will be further divided into specialised areas. This is a vast subject, and we will attempt to grasp the essence of it. What is important is the fundamentals. Details add to the completeness, but are not essential.

I and Experience

I am not that which is being experienced. This is a certainty because if I am that which is being experienced then it raises the question of - what is it that is experiencing it?

That which is witnessing can never change. If it changed, that change will be seen as another Experience, it will not fit in the category of Experiencer. Since Experience is pure change, it can never be the witness. I am the witness, not the witnessed.

That excludes many Experiences, such as objects, bodies, organs in the body, matter, systems, energies, mind or mental activities such as feelings, sensations, emotions, thoughts, imaginations, and it also excludes metaphysical entities of all kinds. They are not me, since they can be witnessed and are ever changing, appearing/disappearing as they are being witnessed.

That which is being experienced cannot be that which is experiencing it. The Experience and the Experiencer are this mutually exclusive categories at the level of duality. This is a paradox since they are one. The paradox cannot be resolved at the level of duality, but at the level of nonduality, they are seen as one. The duality arises in the nonduality and is a part of it.

Some may like to say - I am both the Experience and the Experiencer. This is totally fine, as the Iamness is only a matter of choice, it is arbitrary. The word I can be assigned to almost anything from the objects, to bodies, to minds to memories and so on. However, it is more accurate to say that the I disappears completely at the level of nonduality. There remains no one to claim the title of I. There is no I in Experiencing, there is just Experiencing. As soon as the I word is uttered, we arrive back to the level of duality, which means we fall back in the ignorance.

It is more logical to say that I am the Experiencer, which is at the level of duality and is completely valid. However, we never see the Experience claiming this title, it is absolutely silent. It is the mind, or mental activity, again, which says I am this or that. So wise men discard the I, or the identity, or the individual completely.

Beliefs

There are many Experiences.

Experience comes and goes.

There are moments of non-experience.

Experience generates the Experiencer.

Experience is the truth.

There is a creator of all that can be experienced.

Experiences happen in time and space.

Experience in the scriptures

Maya

Prakruti

Shakti

Feminine

This page is under construction !