Direct Experince

[Shakazulu]

Is direct experience king because all is possible in the infinity? 

[Nahm]

What’s the alternative really? 

[fluidmonolith]

I was just about to ask a similar question (why is direct experience king?) after watching Leo's video "The Mechanics of Belief" (https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-mechanics-of-belief). I know it's an older video, but I just now watched it. I was going to make a separate thread, but I think I will just add my thoughts and questions here, since Shakazulu's question is so similar to mine.

First, I want to thank you Leo for all of your work on actualized.org and your videos. They have certainly helped by providing me with new information, practices, and ideas to contemplate as I pursue self mastery. Now onto my thoughts about the video:

Am I misunderstanding something in this video? Leo argues that we hold beliefs, and that we mistakenly treat our beliefs as truths. This is fair. But he also seems to put forth the idea that direct experience, rather than belief, is the method we should use to derive truth. But is that really true? Or is that also just a belief? At this moment after watching this video, I can’t yet believe Leo’s idea (if I am interpreting his idea correctly) that truth derived from direct experience (e.g. empiricism) is more likely to be factual than truth derived from other means. Let me make my argument against direct experience necessarily being the source of truth. I will cite an example from wikipedia’s page on epistemology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology):

“For example, if a person believes that a bridge is safe enough to support her, and attempts to cross it, but the bridge then collapses under her weight, it could be said that she believed that the bridge was safe but that her belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that she knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported her weight, then the person might say that she had believed the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to herself (by crossing it), she knows it was safe.”

Seemingly, the argument made in Leo’s video is that the bridge crosser’s direct experience (that the bridge is known to be safe after crossing it) is the real source of truth, rather than their belief (before crossing the bridge), that it safe. But there are some very major pitfalls, I think, to placing direct experience as the source of truth:

1) People often vastly exaggerate the implications of direct experience: In this bridge crossing example, one might conclude, after crossing this bridge, that it is safe. However, this example did not teach that all, and the example is carefully worded as to not imply this - notice at the end it reads "she knows [the bridge] was safe" rather than "she knows it is safe". The only thing that can be truthfully concluded from this example, is that that person safely crossed the bridge under those specific conditions, at that time. It cannot be concluded that it would have been safe for that person to cross the bridge under different conditions, that is safe for the person to cross the bridge again, or that it is safe for a different person (even of identical mass) to cross the bridge. Yet, in practice, we will often use direct experience of past events of to mistakenly claim knowledge of future events. Micro-damage to the bridge during the first crossing may have made it unsafe for a second crossing. A different gait when crossing a second time may cause the bridge to collapse even if it didn’t the first time. It may just be raining the second time, and the person may slip and fall off the bridge. The direct experience clearly conferred the knowledge that the bridge was crossed safely once, under very specific conditions (e.g. date, time, weather, bridge degradation, etc), but it is false to conclude that the bridge is knowingly safe to cross under any other situation whatsoever. This is not a lacking in the value of direct experience, but rather a result of false conclusions people often derive from them.

2) Direct experience is, necessarily, subjective and limited by one’s own perspective. In the bridge example, the bridge crosser traversed the bridge safely and has the direct experience that the bridge is safe. But someone else could cross the bridge without physical injury, yet suffer psychological trauma, perhaps because the bridge swayed a lot, or they’re just afraid of heights. This person would conclude that the bridge is unsafe. Which direct experience is correct? In reality, two people can experience the same external stimuli yet have completely different internal responses.

To my knowledge, we do not have objective, infinite awareness. Even if we did (and I am open to the idea such a thing is possible, for example through enlightenment), would we be sure that our awareness was truly infinite? If I walk outside of my town, I can see a cross-section of my town on the horizon and say “I am infinitely aware of my whole town.” But then I may go up onto a mountain and then see the whole town from above, gaining a perspective I couldn’t have from ground level. Only then would I realize that I wasn’t actually infinitely aware of my town when viewed from ground level. But then what if I view the mountain and the town from space? My perspective will again be widened. The problem is that, from each perspective, one may not even be aware of wider perspectives until they are experienced. If I conclude that any direct experience I have represents the broadest, most objective, complete, and consequently, most truthful perspective, is that also not just a belief?

The implications of this last question are of extreme importance, especially for those of us on actualized.org who pursue enlightenment, because it calls into question the truth of the enlightenment experience, since it is a direct experience. So am I missing something here? Or is it really just belief that the profoundness of enlightenment experiences (as an example) implies their truth?

Finally, let me point out a few things that I am not claiming when I deny direct experience as the absolute source of truth:

1) direct experiences, such as enlightenment experiences, are not worth pursuing. I am not making this claim. All of our concepts about reality are derived from something, whether that is direct experience, data, logic, or beliefs. If we can’t trust that enlightenment experiences are true, then should we still pursue them? I think so. Firstly, we can look at many (not all) people who have had enlightenment experiences and see the significant positive effects they’ve had on their lives, even years or decades after the event. Whether or not these experiences represent truth, it seems quite likely that they are beneficial.

2) direct experience is not the source of truth. I am not making this claim. Direct experience could very well be the most accurate source of truth. I am only saying that nothing said in this video convinces me that direct experience is the most accurate source of truth.

3) some other source (e.g. rational thought) is the real source of truth, not direct experience. I am not making this claim. Again, I am not making any claims as to what is the accurate source of truth, only that direct experience is not necessarily a more valid or profound source than any others.

Lastly, please do not take my arguments as disrespect towards Leo or actualized.org. On the contrary, I respect Leo and his work to help people raise their consciousness.

Edited July 8, 2018 by fluidmonolith

[RendHeaven]

Fantastic questions all around @fluidmonolith. I have similar questions as well. I am eager to see if Leo himself has an answer for us on this thread. After closely following his content for quite a bit, however, I think I can predict his answer even if I do not know the truth of it myself. I believe Leo would tell you that direct experience is different from belief because all distinctions dissolve. While you are operating from the paradigm of duality, questions like "is the bridge safe" is up for debate because you have various perspectives and various agendas. When you reach an enlightenment state, you BECOME the bridge. The question "is the bridge safe" will actually seem absurd, since you, as everything in existence all at once know that you cannot be wounded. So on one hand you would conclude that the bridge indeed is safe. But then you would also realize that the bridge doesn't exist and that you do not exist and that safety doesn't exist and therefore the answer would be that the bridge is unsafe while simultaneously being safe. And that would be Truth with a capital T, and you would only come to that realization with this heightened state of consciousness.

 

The big question, "how do I know I'm not being delusional?" still seems to negate everything I'm saying here. How would you know that you're not deluding yourself into believing that you are the bridge? Maybe you've become a lunatic that thinks he's a bridge (lol) and is basing everything he thinks he knows upon this delusion? Again, I believe Leo would respond to that question by noting that LITERALLY BEING INFINITY is not a belief. You can't just imagine yourself to be "everything" at once, your mind could not handle that. You can't even fathom the limitlessness of reality. Anything short of BEING infinity (direct experience) therefore, must be a belief while on the other hand, direct experience could not be a belief for you will simply see that "I am." In the example where a lunatic thinks he's a bridge and everyone else thinks he's insane, well from the enlightenment paradigm, everyone is insane by thinking that they are people. The bridge guy is quite average in that regard. By being a human being, you're just as delusional as the bridge guy!

 

Of course direct experience is bullshit from a dualistic paradigm. That's why science is so revered. We assume we are finite and therefore we need to come to a consensus of what's real. If one guy is looking at a tree and sees a pancake, but everyone else sees the same tree and not a pancake, we instinctively say "oh that pancake guy is hallucinating" and we begin to draw boundaries and labels and we assert that we see truth (the tree) while he sees fantasy (the pancake) simply on the ground that MAJORITY agrees. There's a slight slight slight chance that we're all hallucinating the tree while he sees truth (the pancake), but we dismiss that because reality couldn't POSSIBLY be that tricky, right?  In this example, even if every single person on the planet sees a tree instead of a pancake, we would all be BELIEVING that tree to be real, for we would not literally BE the tree. We would not be directly experiencing (being) but rather indirectly experiencing (seeing) the tree.

 

Now I'm not saying that we're all mistaking pancakes for trees, all I'm saying is that we make assumptions about what is real without ever questioning it.  99.9999999% of people (I came up with that number lol) including myself have not experienced absolute infinity to the point where all sense of self is obliterated. By considering such an insane paradigm shift, you might begin to appreciate how valuable direct experience might be.

Edited July 8, 2018 by RendHeaven

[cirkussmile]

A simple way to understand it is by understand that direct experience means without desire and personal suffering. It’s an attitude to life that happens after the doer is seen through.

[Victor Mgazi]

Get rid of the notion direct and indirect for it is a conceptual belief. Experience has no duality and there is no thing that can exist independent from it. 

@RendHeaven @fluidmonolith

Experience is not subjective, perception is. When something has duality then it is subjective and this includes truth (true v.s. false). Experience is uncaused, it is what you refer to as now . It is only in the now that there is past, present and future. Experience is independent and eternal. 

Hope this makes sense for you guys. Let me know if it's unclear. 

[Faceless]

Experience implies an experiencer. One and the same movement of thought.

 

Without the experiencer is there an experience??

 

Does this not imply that experience is subjective?? 

 

Pure perception is absnese of the experiencer in which is the ending of experience. When memory ceases to project the past, (thought), onto the present and into the future. 

 

Experience is the result of thought, and by no means is it direct. Experience is a distortion of the now. Experience, knowledge, memory that is then imposed onto each “now moment” and interpreted as being new. 

 

All thought is old and never new. Just as all experiences are a projection of the old, and never new. 

 

When, or if, experience ceases to blanket the now, is when the new comes into being.

Until then all experience is simply a projection from the past that is modified and impressed onto the now. 

 

Pretty groovy huh? 

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by Faceless

[Bobby]

@Shakazulu I’ll hit your question with another question.

do you know what direct experience is?

is it the same as your regular, day to day perception of life? 

Or is it deeper than that?

is the “direct experience” of Truth in any way able to be represented in the visual, mental, auditory, or other sensory fields?

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Bobby

[tsuki]

@fluidmonolith Great post. You should have put it in a separate thread. You would get more traction with it that way.My response will be short, mostly because your points are valid. There seems to be one thing you are missing, which cause your puzzlement, however.

Belief is not a thought stored on a readily-available thought-pile. There is no access to such a pile, other than by experiencing the thought as you think it. There is a passing sensation of speech that goes through your head as you think a thought. Beliefs are mute and invisible. Beliefs predicate what thoughts you can think, and you can arrive at beliefs by interpreting your thoughts over a long period of time.

That arrival at a belief by interpretation is still only a thought. All thoughts are here and now, and beliefs are nowhere to be found.

You cannot experience the safety of a bridge, other than listening to your thoughts and feelings as you cross it. This experience however is not something that can be extrapolated onto future events that can occur on the said bridge. That is because the safety of a bridge is a property of you as much as it is a property of a bridge. Safety is the boundary at which you and a bridge meet (touch), without intersecting.

There is no external, objective, perspective about a safety of a bridge. Like you said - no amount of experiments can determine whether the bridge is safe, but do you understand why? Safety of a bridge is not found within an objective structure of a bridge. To a bridge, its safety is irrelevant. To you, it is irrelevant what is a structure of a bridge as long as it is safe. 

To a squirrel, there is no such thing as a bridge. Not because it is too stupid to notice it, but because it has no beliefs about it.
Beliefs are what lets you experience the world in a tangible way. They are not your enemy, but in order to understand what they are - you need to first become enlightened.

Enlightenment is not knowledge that you put on your thought-pile to change what you can notice.
Enlightenment is a rupture (obliteration) in the web of your beliefs which you experience personally. The extent to which you experience it personally determines the degree of your awakening. There are degrees that feel like death and this is why we call it as such.

It is not because we have experienced physical death, but because there are no words that can possibly describe it.
It is because we destroy our beliefs that are the root of tangibility of the world.
This is why talking about enlightenment is so difficult.

Edited July 9, 2018 by tsuki

[Victor Mgazi]

@Faceless experience does not depend on a perciever or "experiencer".

Experience is merely the awareness of an event, this event is now. Awareness is not of human perception or anything for that matter. If it was then it would be a perception. Hence it can't be perceived. All thought and perception exists in experience. Experience is uncaused nor can it be pointed to, that's why I say that it is not direct nor is it indirect. 

Try to understand that you are not experiencing anything, you are are the one being experienced by nothing. 

Please, don't confuse your intelligence for consciousness! 

[Faceless]

2 hours ago, Victor Mgazi said:

@Faceless experience does not depend on a perciever or "experiencer".

Experience is merely the awareness of an event, this event is now. Awareness is not of human perception or anything for that matter. If it was then it would be a perception. Hence it can't be perceived. All thought and perception exists in experience. Experience is uncaused nor can it be pointed to, that's why I say that it is not direct nor is it indirect. 

Try to understand that you are not experiencing anything, you are are the one being experienced by nothing. 

Please, don't confuse your intelligence for consciousness! 

Uh oh 

I’m afraid you are not understanding what is said.

Perhaps you have been reading to many books my friend. You might want look into that a little deeper. Watch out for them books, they will get you?

[Victor Mgazi]

@Faceless if I have misinterpreted something in your statement then please, by all means, do enlighten me. 

And this knowledge isn't something that I have read out of a book, just to clarify. 

[Victor Mgazi]

Approach experience as you would approach time to make things easier. 

Time exists and this is not a belief, this is fact. It cannot be proven otherwise, I mean this is literally starring you in your face. Yes I get why people would say that it's an illusion or whatever but this doesn't change the fact that it's there. No thought or concept is needed to prove it's existence, it is simply there. 

Experience is Time ,and you can't point at it because that would be a happening in time, it's like trying to take a step away from yourself! This is all that I'm saying about experience basically. Within now lives the past, present and future. 

Hope this is clear and comprehensible. 

[Faceless]

5 hours ago, Victor Mgazi said:

@Faceless if I have misinterpreted something in your statement then please, by all means, do enlighten me. 

And this knowledge isn't something that I have read out of a book, just to clarify. 

If you are not aware of my original post, this phenomena I speak of, then you will not understand what I wrote. It will take much more then me explaining it to you. 

I will give you a hint to explore into. Experience implies a recognition. To recognize something that has already happened in the past, which is thought responding from memory as knowledge. 

All these subtlites must be understood when approaching all of this. To be a conciousensss with no-thing in it requires we don’t get caught up in our own inventions of the conditioned mind. 

8 hours ago, Victor Mgazi said:

Try to understand that you are not experiencing anything, you are are the one being experienced by nothing. 

I have read this again and again on the forum. If you say this, yet don’t understand my original post, you have been caught in your own invention of thought-experience. We must be able to navigate all the various traps thought will construct. This requires understanding and consistent observation to that understanding. 

Investigate into it. See what is said for yourself. It’s quite a mind bender. 

And once you see all this, maybe you will then end the veil of experience and actually be no-thing. 

If you see that you are nothingness experiencing, does that come from things of the mind, or is that an actual fact that is the case? 

Is there an obseveration totally void of an observer, which is the past,(experience, knowledge, memory) ??

This is the actuality of being (No-thing). Anything other than this remains an idea-belief, that you are nothingness experiencing yourself, which implies it has been born of THINGS, and therefore not no-thing. 

We must ask oursleves, if we want to be honest, is this notion of being nothingness the product of the accumulation gathered from the stream of thought.

There is a big difference between being nothing, and believing you are nothing. One is unburdened by the distortion of thought-experience, and the other is depends on that distortion of thought-experience. 

I encourage you to explore this buddy. It is quite a beautiful non-thing indeed for ones head to go missing  

 

P.S. 

i don’t want you to accept what I say, but I want to you explore it for yourself. This is sacred and beautiful. 

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

11 minutes ago, Victor Mgazi said:

This is all that I'm saying about experience basically. Within now lives the past, present and future. 

I understand what you mean by this. 

This is the movement of thought. 

Can this movement end, and therefore can time-experience end? 

Then there is no past-present-future (time) at all. This is what is meant by the timeless. 

Or what I call headlessness (emptiness-nothingness) 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

12 minutes ago, Victor Mgazi said:

Experience is Time ,and you can't point at it because that would be a happening in time

You are experience-time. 

“The i” is all of that. 

The experiencer is the experience. Time is the movement of (the i) 

gnarly eh

[Victor Mgazi]

This is the original post I assume. 

18 hours ago, Faceless said:

Experience implies an experiencer. One and the same movement of thought.

 

Without the experiencer is there an experience??

 

Does this not imply that experience is subjective?? 

 

Pure perception is absnese of the experiencer in which is the ending of experience. When memory ceases to project the past, (thought), onto the present and into the future. 

 

Experience is the result of thought, and by no means is it direct. Experience is a distortion of the now. Experience, knowledge,

18 hours ago, Faceless said:

memory that is then imposed onto each “now moment” and interpreted as being new. 

 

that is then imposed onto each “now moment” and interpreted as being new. 

 

All thought is old and never new. Just as all experiences are a projection of the old, and never new. 

 

When, or if, experience ceases to blanket the now, is when the new comes into being.

Until then all experience is simply a projection from the past that is modified and impressed onto the now. 

 

Pretty groovy huh? 

 

And I hope you have seen my earliest post on this topic. 

I already understand that the i  is a movement of thought. But I don't think we see eye to eye with the nature of EXPERIENCE. So I will tell you my concept of experience which is the awareness of an event or subject  , it's the experiencing that I'm referring to. 

I hope you are as open minded about this subject as I am because it seems like you are dismissing other people's view point on the matter but anyway. I'm not claiming that knowing this will lead to awakening or anything like that because as far as I'm concerned this has nothing to do with Spiritual Awakening. 

Though I must argue against this... 

18 hours ago, Faceless said:

Experience is the result of thought,

What I'm saying is that experience is uncaused, "the result of... " suggests a cause which is a movement of thought. Reality has no beginning or end. Like I said, it is only in NOW that there can be a cause and effect, action and reaction, a beginning and an ending. 

Memory exists now, without it the past ceases to exist and same thing with the present and the future, they are just thoughts that are existing now and only now. 

2 hours ago, Faceless said:

You are experience-time. 

“The i” is all of that. 

The experiencer is the experience. Time is the movement of (the i) 

gnarly eh

Experience does imply experiencer but that doesn't mean that it's true. Like how anger implies hate but that doesn't mean it's true either, I can hate you for loving you see. imply doesn't necessarily indicate the truth. 

I'm not really opposing you here I'm just trying to make sure there is good communication because it seems like we aren't understanding one another. 

2 hours ago, Faceless said:

There is a big difference between being nothing, and believing you are nothing

I understand this perfectly. I was never stating any belief. Time is, it doesn't need someone to believe in it. 

I can never be nothing precisely because of i (ego) but I am one with experience hence I state - you are being experienced because you are the universe. And yes time is the movement of the i but don't assume that it is caused because of the implications. Infinity is infinity. 

wow this is a long text! But I hope it clarifies some stuff. 

[Faceless]

Yeah we’re not quite meeting one another yet. Perhaps we may soon.. We should probably communicate with as few words possible to keep a straight clear communication next time. 

I appreciate your reply back though. This is very interesting this. Soon maybe we will continue on this.

Thanks again friend. 

Edited July 9, 2018 by Faceless

[cirkussmile]

If we talk about the experience of being aware we can connect and understand.

That experience is not a thought or a movement of thought. 

 

[Guest Quanty]

1. Time is irrelevant, it slows down with the inner acceleration of energy.