- Jan 19, 2014
- 438
- 874
My question to the spiritual people (and it's a fair question) is how do you know your experiences are genuine, or just a delusion?
Sometimes I feel that you guys are so desperate to have some kind of experience to validate your faith, that you will go to any length to justify that you indeed had such an experience. A short while ago, a member started a thread where he wondered why he gets a pain between his eyes when meditating. A few jumped on the idea that his chakra was opening and he was becoming enlightened, when in fact he was just crossing his eyes too much.
Some claim to have heard ringing or drum beats when listening for the Anhaad Naad. Instead of pausing to look for a rational explanation, I feel that the spiritual people will just get excited and proclaim "Yes! Yes! It's working! Carry on!" As if the whole point of meditating is to hear things that aren't there.
We agree that Maya (the material world) is an illusion, so how can you be sure that your experiences aren't just an illusion as well. I'm sure they feel real, but dreams can also feel the same way. Has anyone ever had a dream where they felt like they were falling? Has anyone ever heard of sleep paralysis, night terrors and hypnotic suggestions?
There are plenty of people in mental institutions who have vivid experiences which they believe are real, with the same convictions that you all do. The same argument can be used: Who are we to say that those people don't really have these experiences?
Gurbani doesn't tell us to have out of body experiences, or hear things. It just says listen to Anhaad Naad. Maybe Anhaad Naad doesn't sound like anything at all. Maybe we "listen" to it in the same way we "listen" to our heart and our mind. In the Kabir ji shabadh we discussed (the one with animals), the elephant and the ox where playing the musical instruments. The mind plays the music, it doesn't come from an external source. It's a poetic illustration.
I am wary of "experiences" because they behave in the same way that Maya does. Maya appears subjectively through the person's eyes. It doesn't beget its own image. The apple is red and sweet by virtue of our senses extracting the redness and sweetness from the apple. I hope this makes sense.
Sometimes I feel that you guys are so desperate to have some kind of experience to validate your faith, that you will go to any length to justify that you indeed had such an experience. A short while ago, a member started a thread where he wondered why he gets a pain between his eyes when meditating. A few jumped on the idea that his chakra was opening and he was becoming enlightened, when in fact he was just crossing his eyes too much.
Some claim to have heard ringing or drum beats when listening for the Anhaad Naad. Instead of pausing to look for a rational explanation, I feel that the spiritual people will just get excited and proclaim "Yes! Yes! It's working! Carry on!" As if the whole point of meditating is to hear things that aren't there.
We agree that Maya (the material world) is an illusion, so how can you be sure that your experiences aren't just an illusion as well. I'm sure they feel real, but dreams can also feel the same way. Has anyone ever had a dream where they felt like they were falling? Has anyone ever heard of sleep paralysis, night terrors and hypnotic suggestions?
There are plenty of people in mental institutions who have vivid experiences which they believe are real, with the same convictions that you all do. The same argument can be used: Who are we to say that those people don't really have these experiences?
Gurbani doesn't tell us to have out of body experiences, or hear things. It just says listen to Anhaad Naad. Maybe Anhaad Naad doesn't sound like anything at all. Maybe we "listen" to it in the same way we "listen" to our heart and our mind. In the Kabir ji shabadh we discussed (the one with animals), the elephant and the ox where playing the musical instruments. The mind plays the music, it doesn't come from an external source. It's a poetic illustration.
I am wary of "experiences" because they behave in the same way that Maya does. Maya appears subjectively through the person's eyes. It doesn't beget its own image. The apple is red and sweet by virtue of our senses extracting the redness and sweetness from the apple. I hope this makes sense.