Is Experience the Same as Knowledge?

[M & E Shearn]

> It would be more like
>Arjuna's vision of Krishna in his divine form, but worse.
>Arjuna retained his individuality during that experience.
>In this other experience the individuality and identification
>with one's body goes away.

namaste,
I must ask, did Arjuna realize The Self or experience a vision?.
In retaining individuality could there have been Knowledge, which is one
without a second.
Is Knowledge other than the Self?
If there is loss of individuality and loss of identification with the body,
who would be left to be aware of being afraid?
If there is fear can there be anything but illusion and ignorance?
Doesn't Jnana obliterate ignorance, like the light removes dark?
Can the snake and the rope be known simultaneously?

My experience is that Awareness it self is pure and homoginized.
Without it limitited to being 'in me' there is no second thing 'in it' to be
fearful of.
If I am aware of awareness then there is individuality or ego, which is
itself ignorance or Duality.
Of course Knowledge abides beyond 'all this' in Silence
om shanti
ej

>From  Sun Nov 10 01:00:25 1996
Message-Id: <SUN.10.NOV.1996.010025.GMT.>
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 01:00:25 GMT
Reply-To: kstuart at MAIL.TELIS.ORG
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ken Stuart <kstuart at MAIL.TELIS.ORG>
Subject: Re: Is Experience the Same as Knowledge?
Comments: To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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Hello,

Since there are some relatively new list members, I'll repost the
followoing quote from Swami Lakshman Jee ( when he talks about
practical knowledge, I believe he is talking about what we are calling
"experience" ):

" If an aspirant is only attached to practical knowledge [ ie
developed through practice ] and not to theoretical [ie intellectual]
knowledge, believing that the only real knowledge is practical
knowledge which is the realizing of one's own nature, then he is
incorrect from a Saiva point of view.  If only practical knowledge is
cultivated and intellectual knowledge is totally ignored then there is
every possibility that practical knowledge may decrease day by day,
slowly fading away so that in the end it does not remain at all.  It
is the greatness of intellectual knowledge that with its power it
firmly establishes practical knowledge.  In this respect, therefore,
intellectual knowledge is more predominant than practical knowledge."

My understanding of what he is saying, is that without intellectual
knowledge, one does not know where one is going with one's practice.

I have a friend who joined a particular spiritual group because their
emphasis was on spiritual experience, rather than intellectual
knowledge.   After a number of years, he lost his way to that 'place'
that spiritual experience brings one (the practices of the group
stopped working for him for awhile).   Since he did not have any depth
of intellectual knowledge, he did not know how to find his way 'back'
on his own, and eventually left the group.

PS  Recently, I've been e-mailing a bunch of people in the USA about
"When is Diwali night?".   Amazingly, I've consistently received three
different answers:

- Saturday night
- Sunday night
- Monday night

This response is quite different from Westerners, who couldn't
conceive of anyone else celebrating Christmas on a different day from
everyone else!

I'm under the impression that Diwali night precedes the Indian New
Years Day, which leads to the following hypothetical conversation:

"Hello uncle, happy new year!"  "How can you say that, it's not new
year for another two days!"  :-)


Namaskar,

Ken

kstuart at mail.telis.org
http://www.zynet.com/~castlerx/kstuart/KSphilosophy.html