Experience!

Another disease has now begun to spread in the world to weaken and lessen peace. There are plenty who, parrot-like, purvey wholesome advice on morals, religion, and discipline but who do not practice even a single bit of it themselves. The so-called elders know only how to speak, not how to act. How do those who teach how to act know enough to speak about it? Words devoid of experience, that is the illness that afflicts the world today. This disease must first be treated and removed, for peace is warped thereby for mankind. Speaking is easy for all. The real spiritual aspirant, however, acts and then speaks from experience.

~Prasanthi Vahini

Do not rest content by mere listening to advice. What you have listened to must later be reflected upon, and what has thus been imprinted on the mind has later to be experienced and expressed in thought, word, and deed. Only thus can the truth be a treasure in the heart; only then can it flow through the veins and manifest in full splendor through you… The yearning must be deep and persistent. The longing to know and experience the truth will then become yoga, a process of union.

~Vidya Vahini

Even this path of devotion cannot be defined and demarcated as such and such. Since it has many forms, roads, and types of experience, it is impossible for anyone to describe it accurately and fully. Each devotee gets bliss only through their individual experience. Through the experience of other devotees, at best they can get only encouragement and guidance. The experience changes from one person to another, so it eludes comparison and even description. If anyone describes it by examples and limits, be sure that their experience is not real.

The limited soul is immersed in the limitless love of the Lord, and how can words describe that experience called by the Upanishads as the unbroken uniflow of sweetness? One cannot express that state of unbounded devotion in human language. By outward signs that can be cognized by the senses, one can feel that the devotee is in a high state of bliss, but who can gauge the depth of that joy? It has no relation with the senses at all. Devotion must be realized in your own experience, though great souls can illumine the path a little for you by their examples. With their help, you can grasp something of the path, but always remember that words fail when they approach the Beyond. They are useful only for purposes of the objective world. They are instruments of no value in regions of experience where comparisons are impossible.

What spiritual aspirants must do now is this. First, develop wisdom with discrimination (viveka)—that is to say, the capacity to distinguish the eternal from the transitory and to decide which is worthy. Second, make a sincere attempt to experience what is chosen as worthy and true. Third, don’t give up discipline, whatever comes in the way. These three can be called genuine spiritual austerity (tapas). From this austerity alone is born real peace and joy.

~Prasanthi Vahini