The Painted Canvas

Spirit was the original 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.

The 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 Spirit – Experience.

Eyes, ears and mind gathered perceptual experience

Perceptual experience that was

Direct, Immediate, Here and Now.

Sense organs and Mind came together

to experience and enjoy

the beautiful fragrant red rose.

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.

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.

The learning Mind gathered collective wisdom

Through books, teachers, and guides.

Indirect knowledge that substituted for direct experience.

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.

The Mind 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

And the Spirit Experience does not ride.

The truth was that the experience Mind itself

was riding on the Spirit Experience.

The 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

Of perceptual, inferential and textual knowledge.

How then was Spirit Experience experienced?

It needed no means of experiencing – direct or indirect.

Like the Sun requires no light to illumine itself,

Spirit did not depend on any means.

Just as the Sun is never in darkness,

Spirit Experience was never away from experience.

Experience experienced itself

Because it was nothing but experience....

Direct, Eternal, Here and Now.

The experience of Spirit Experience

was the basis on which every experience rides.

Spirit Experience manifested as multiple experiences –

Mind experience, Object experience, and Knowing experience.

All these experiences are manifestations of

One Spirit Experience

That abides by itself in its own glory, beyond knowing and unknowing.

The Mind, frustrated in trying to know the Spirit Experience

Surrendered to the Teacher and begged for enlightenment.

The Teacher smiled at Mind

And simply said –

That Thou Art.

The Mind realised the Spirit Experience

As the Mind of the mind,

Eye of the eye,

And Breath of the breath.

Spirit Experience was

The experience of the experience,

Ever experienced, never away from experience.

The Mind in wonder, said

Aha!

And that was the joy of realization.

Direct, Immediate. Here and Now.

The experience of understanding

The Experience of Recognition,

"I am 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