Why Experience is Not Enough

I left the New Age movement over 40 years ago-for numerous reasons that I cannot expand upon fully on this occasion. But one of the reasons was a whole host of beliefs, the New Age credo if you like. In this article, I will address one of those fundamental beliefs and the reasons it is wrong. That belief is the following:” That the only thing we can really trust on the spiritual path is our own, individual experience.” That is a deeply flawed conviction and here is why.

1)We need the experience of others- specifically those of the Prophets, saints and real masters. How could we practice Islam and even Sufism without the experience of Mohammed saws? Without the Quran, which he transmitted for us, and without his hadith and dua we would be nowhere. How can one practice Christianity without the New Testament and the Old Testament and the sayings of Jesus a.s. The monks and ascetics and mystics of Christianity would have no basis for their practice without that.The same, of course, is true for Judaism and Buddhism and Vedantic Hinduism.

Do New Age people really believe that they can have the experience of the Quran being revealed to them personally or of being crucified as the Christians believe happened to Jesus?! Anyone trying to climb Mount Sinai for a second edition of the Tablets lol?I hope not or we may be more in the domain of psychosis than that of false beliefs lol. As individuals, we cannot possibly have all the experiences needed to follow a complete spiritual path. Therefore it is necessary, first of all, that we take account of the experience of other people who are higher in spiritual status than we will ever be!

2) Experience is subject to misinterpretation.

One of the most common misinterpretations is to confuse Phenomenology (personal experience) with Ontology(Actual Existence).Sorry for the Latin words but they do circumscribe the problem better than anything I could find in English or French lol.

In Sufi history we have the iconic story of Mansur al-Hallaj running around the marketplace of Baghdad shouting; ”I am the Truth”. Despite the exhortations of his master Junayd al-Baghdadi, he kept insisting until the governor of the state ordered his execution. In Sufi terms, we would say he was experiencing a ‘hal’.When we do so we are often best advised to remain silent!  In the contemporary Western World we have the al-Hallaj equivalents in the neo-Advaita Vedantists preaching unicity “non-dual reality” to their followers. ”There is Only One Reality” they claim. All of this world and all of its creatures and inhabitants are illusions. Robert Adams, a student of Ramana Maharshi and one of the most articulate exponents of this theology puts it this way: ”Principle Number One: The realization that everything you see, the universe, people, worms, insects, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, your body, your mind, everything that appears is a manifestation of your mind”. I don’t believe he is making this up. It is clearly an experience. But it is fundamentally wrong! The Creation, too, is real1 It does not have the quality of independent Existence as it comes from a series of causes(asbab) of which the Original Causer is Allah (God). But it is Real nevertheless! And, intuitively, we all know that. Thinking it is not so can lead to all kinds of misjudgments and misbehaviours as we will highlight shortly.

Another common misinterpretation, especially in the Indian religions, is that if you have the experience of God (Nirvana if you wish) then you are God and then everything you do after that is perfect! We can only begin to  imagine the corruption that can come from such a misinterpretation of experience. I like to tell the iconic story of a Sufi friend of mine (a true story btw!) who bought a used car from a follower of a well-known guru in upstate New York. Yes, the stories of used car salesmen are a stereotype going back to the famous cartoon of Richard Nixon with his “six-o’clock shadow beard saying:” Would you buy a used car from this man? ”Many commentators believe he lost the election because of that cartoon!

My story here involves, however, two relatively poor spiritual aspirants-one a Sufi and the other a follower of Shaiva Hinduism. The Hindu follower when confronted with all the defects in his used car said: ”But brother, the God in me sold the God in you this car. How could there be anything wrong with this deal?!” Really!

Now, admittedly the excuses are not always as lame as that. But how about the spiritual teacher sleeping with one of his female students saying that he is transmitting Grace to her or that it is a Tantric practice. Or that this is a means for her spiritual evolution. Yes,I have seen it all-not literally “in the flesh” so to speak lol but through credible witnesses. And then there is the always the very popular Buddhist group who being confronted with the misbehaviour of their teacher called it” Crazy Wisdom”?! Not crazy, corrupt and immoral I would say. Much of these kinds of behaviour come from misinterpretation of spiritual experience.  Almost all these teachers have had some serious experience of the Divine. All of them misinterpreted it!

3) The spiritual path requires both Faith (Iman) and Trust in God (Tawakkul). Both of those are feelings -subtle ones- in the heart. But they are not experiences. You don’t have visions of Faith and Trust! You feel them. They come from good actions and Grace. They don’t come from proper meditation techniques or Yoga exercises.

4) The need for a Multi-Dimensional approach. I like to use the analogy of a competent judge -using all the information available in order to apprehend reality. I noticed in my practice, that in a counterintuitive manner, judges were more able to apprehend the comprehensive reality that was before them when patients were arguing for their insurance rights. Strangely the judges “got it” better than the specialist doctors. Why was that? Because the specialists were stuck in their so-called “scientific paradigm”. The only source of Truth for them was the peer-review journals and the scientific conferences they attended most of whose content issued from those journals. The judges however were able to listen to the witnesses, consider their “subjective” reports and even assess their honesty. They regularly understood the medical aspects better than the doctors.

One brief anecdote here that may be instructive. I had a client many years ago that was off work for a Major Depression(all too common in the modern world).The employer argued that my client was malingering and they had hired private detectives to follow him and film his daily activities(Yes, this is happening on a regular basis in our societies!).The medical specialists argued to  the judge  that psychiatric science proves that a person with A Major Depression cannot be so active. The judge looked at me and said “What do you say to that,Dr.Kreps?”I looked her straight in the eyes and said:”Mde. Judge. I worked for a while in a Day Hospital with Chronic Schizophrenics. Many of them were just as active if not more so than my client!” Thank you Doctor” she responded. She got it! I knew at that moment we had won the case! And we did!

Admittedly, the spiritual quest is different from psychiatry. But the principle remains the same:” We need a multi-modal approach-not just personal experience. This multi-modal approach should include the following.

: The teaching of the Prophets and masters

:The use of our reason and logic(something I usually don’t like to emphasize because our educational system is so focused on this one element) This can include the study of the history of our religion and its mystical dimensions and that of others so that we can generate the necessary conclusion

: The use of our intuition and our moral sense(conscience) and developing discernment

: the lucid thinking of others

: ‘ayat’-signs on the ground ( banal example .If every-time your teacher comes to town or you go to visit him the weather is horrible, beware(Yes, I have experienced that too .Inevitably a bad sign!)

: feelings in the heart(see my article on Istikhara for further elucidation)

: being aware of the constant receiving of spiritual transmissions– positive and negative- in our environment

I hope my point is clear by now. ”Experience” is not enough. We need to aim to be Insan al Kamil-the Complete Human Being- not just a sensation-seeking experiencer. Hope that is helpful, Joel Ibrahim Kreps

P.S. I have concluded that generally the safest and most effective way to advance spiritually is to join a well-established tradition(Obviously my preference is for Sufi tariqats) with a legitimate, non-corrupt, alive, contemporary master and follow it to the best of your abilities. The rest is in the hands of God and if you do not see results on this side you will see them in the after-life.