The ‘Aha’ Experience

Spirit originally existed as Experience 

before dawn of creation.

Nothing else existed but Spirit.

Experience alone was.

Whole, Undivided, One without a second.

Riding on Spirit was Nature – the principle of creation.

The potential to create division as it were.....

of experiencer, experienced and experience.

This potential for creating diversity

was neither different from Spirit

nor non-different from it.

Spirit, with the agency of Nature,

Became the source

for all that moved or breathed in creation.

Eyes experienced colour

Ears experienced sound

mind experienced cognitions., feelings, and thoughts.

In the light of the Spirit Experience.

Sense organs and Mind came together

to experience and enjoy

the beautiful fragrant red rose. Aha!

Eyes, ears and mind gathered perceptual experience.

Perceptual experience was

Direct, Immediate, Here and Now.

Mind contemplated on the falling apple

For hours, days, months and years

And inferred the pull of gravity

Attracting all apples towards the centre of the earth. Aha!

The reflective Mind gleaned inferential knowledge

Based on what was seen, heard, and felt.

Inferential knowledge was the experience of understanding -

This Experience of knowing was Indirect,

not necessarily connected to the Here and Now.

The Mind gathered collective wisdom

Through books, teachers, and guides.

The learning mind learnt about 

history of the universe,

earth, stars and planets,

science, arts and craft. Aha!

The informed Mind became a library of knowledge

Of things experienced or visualized by others

Experiencing the same in the mind’s eye

By proxy, indirectly, away from the Here and Now.

Indirect knowledge substituted for direct experience.

The Mind then set out to experience Spirit –

The Experience behind all experiences.

The more it tried, the more it failed,

For mind was designed to gather experiences

That rode on the Spirit Experience

Whereas the Spirit Experience does not ride.

The truth was that the Mind experience itself

was riding on Spirit Experience.

Spirit Experience was not an object of the Mind.

Rather it was the Mind of the Mind,

Eye of the Eye,

And Breath of the Breath.

All experiences, objects and events

Rode on the Spirit experience

And Spirit Experience went beyond the experiences - 

whether perceptual, inferential and informational.

How then was Spirit Experience experienced?

Spirit needed no means of experiencing – direct or indirect.

Like the Sun tht requires no light to illumine itself,

Spirit did not depend on any means of experiencing.

Just as the Sun is never in darkness,

Spirit was never away from experience.

Experience experienced itself

Because it was nothing but experience....

Direct, Eternal, Here and Now.

The experience of Spirit 

was the basis on which every experience rode.

Spirit Experience manifested as multiple experiences –

i.e. Mind experience, Object experience, and Knowing experience.

experiences that were manifestations of

The Spirit Experience

was self evident, self known, self experienced, 

beyond processes like knowing and unknowing, experience and non-experience.

The Mind, getting frustrated 

in trying to know and experience the Spirit 

Surrendered to the Teacher and begged for enlightenment.

The Teacher smiled at Mind

And simply said –

That Thou Art.

The Mind realised the Spirit 

As the Mind of the mind,

Eye of the eye,

And Breath of the breath.

Spirit was The experience of the experience,

Ever experienced, never away from experience.

The Mind in wonder, said

Aha!

That was the joy of realization.

Direct, Immediate. Here and Now.

The experience of understanding

The experience of recognition,

Eureka! "That Experience am I"

The "Aha" experience.

OM

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Mananam Pages

i-am	The Aha Experience:   speakingtree	the-search-for-elusive-i
the-painted-canvas	message-of-upanishads	vedanta-what-you-are
mithya Appearance	one-and-many	moksha Liberation
sat Reality	chit Awareness	ananda Fullness
brahman Ultimate Reality	Anubhava Experience of Self	Svayamprabha  Self Awareness
adhikari Competency for Vedanta	swadharma  My duty	karma Reap what you Sow
acceptance-of-loss	death-transition	my-thoughts-kedarnath-tragedy
an-interesting-conversation	from-darkness-towards-light	vedanta-short-notes-by-lalita
small-i-and-capital-i	sakshi-chaitanya Conscious Witness