Revelation versus Direct Experience

[Sunstone]

Some religions place an emphasis on "revealed truths", by which they generally mean truths revealed by a deity or prophet of a deity. By "emphasis", I mean they subscribe to the notion that their revelations take precedent over someone's direct experience. So, for instance, if someone were to claim to have a direct experience of deity, that experience would be seen as legitimate only in so far as it agreed with, or at least, did not contradict, the religion's reveal truths. At least, that's my understanding of it.

Other religions seem to place an emphasis on direct experience or personal revelation. They subscribe to the notion that such experience or revelation takes precedence over their religion's revealed truths, or scriptures.

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

 

[psychoslice]

Diffidently direct experience, for anything else has to be second-hand, someone else's experience, even in the end if your wrong or right, at least it was your own experience, this is what I myself experienced, and no one will ever take that away from me.

 

[Sunstone]

Diffidently direct experience, for anything else has to be second-hand, someone else's experience, even in the end if your wrong or right, at least it was your own experience, this is what I myself experienced, and no one will ever take that away from me.

Please allow me to play the devil's advocate here. I agree with you, but what would you say to someone who told you that, as an individual, you could be fallible, but by measuring your experiences against the teachings of, say, the church, you will see where they are true and where they are false. That is, by conforming your conclusions to theirs, you will arrive at truth.

 

[psychoslice]

Please allow me to play the devil's advocate here. I agree with you, but what would you say to someone who told you that, as an individual, you could be fallible, but by measuring your experiences against the teachings of, say, the church, you will see where they are true and where they are false. That is, by conforming your conclusions to theirs, you will arrive at truth.

Well for myself personally I don't really need to measure my experience with anything such as scripture, scripture has already been my stepping stone, it has served its purpose and no longer needed, well at least in my case.

 

[Sunstone]

Well for myself personally I don't really need to measure my experience with anything such as scripture, scripture has already been my stepping stone, it has served its purpose and no longer needed, well at least in my case.

So would you liken scripture to training wheels on a bicycle? Useful, perhaps, until you learn to ride, then to be discarded?

 

[psychoslice]

So would you liken scripture to training wheels on a bicycle? Useful, perhaps, until you learn to ride, then to be discarded?

Yes i like that analogy, lets face it we don't really know if the scriptures are truly reliable, and as I said they are only second-hand experiences, we have to enter within our own being to truly realize what its all about, and from there write our own scriptures within our own heart.

 

[Penumbra]

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

I don't consider either to be valuable by themselves.

Revealed truths can just be claims, and there are many ignored every day. Most people in the US, for example, ignore Indian gurus that have a million followers that say they have supernatural abilities. Or, people ignore those folks in mental institutions that say Satan or Jesus made them do it. Basically, a tiny fraction of people with words from deities get listened to. A way to sort any of the truth out is almost impossible, unless someone had actual knowledge from a deity that was interested in proving its truths, such as being able to walk up to any person and describe their entire history including inner thoughts, or something amazing like that.

Direct experiences can be misunderstood. Research has shown that eyewitnesses, for example, are really bad at remembering things correctly. That's why we don't really convict people of serious crimes on eyewitness testimony alone. It's too fickle. If someone says they have an experience, they could be lying, but often I believe they're telling the truth, but then could easily be mistaking what they experienced in any number of ways.

If anything, direct experiences can be initial points for further questioning. Like, if someone says they can get on a bed, meditate, and then have an out of body experience, we can ask details about what they see, and then based on what they claim to see, we can test it. Like if someone says they can look down from the ceiling, we can put something there that can only be read from the ceiling, and ask them to say what it is. This can help evidence whether their line of sight is actually coming from the ceiling, or whether from their bed position their brain is merely interpreting what the room would look like from up there, and is therefore limited to only information it has on the bed.

Or, if someone says they experience oneness, researchers can do brain scans and see what's going on. For example, meditating Buddhist monks were found to have high activity in the frontal lobe (associated with concentration) and significantly reduced activity in the parietal lobe (associated in that area with our ability to be spatially aware, and able to differentiate between self and non-self). So, rather than doubting that they subjectively experienced a sense of oneness, I would merely doubt that they experienced actual oneness, as in, I question the claim that they stopped being the island of senses that they always are, because they came back with no extra-sensory information of any kind.

So, direct experiences can at least serve as initial points to ask what they experienced, whether it happens often, what the details are, and compare it to claims of other people, compare it to attempt to stimulate it artificially (chemicals, electrodes, whatever), and do tests to see how accurate the interpretation is, if it's the type of thing that can be tested.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

How can we trust anything not experienced directly? Revelation should never take precedence over experience.

 

[crossfire]

So would you liken scripture to training wheels on a bicycle? Useful, perhaps, until you learn to ride, then to be discarded?

Scriptures can provide a common language/frame of reference by which people who have direct experience can communicate their own direct findings with others, and compare with the experience of others.

 

[YmirGF]

Scriptures can provide a common language/frame of reference by which people who have direct experience can communicate their own direct findings with others, and compare with the experience of others.

The problem with this is that people get caught in a given paradigm of thought by doing so instead of thinking of new, perhaps better, ways of communicating their experience. Likewise, to rely on the so-called "common language", though understandable by a larger audience, unnecessarily muddies the message. In effect, there is almost no point in saying anything, just find the appropriate section of scripture de jour and say, "This!" No doubt the crowd would "ohhh" and "ahhh" over that but it isn't really that effective, imho.

In regards to the OP, I'm not a fan of any kind of "revelation" regardless of its point of origin. I much prefer realization, as that is something that, if it has any real merit, should be translatable in terms that others can understand. Realization stands (or falls) on its own merits, revelation needs buttressing.

 

[crossfire]

The problem with this is that people get caught in a given paradigm of thought by doing so instead of thinking of new, perhaps better, ways of communicating their experience. Likewise, to rely on the so-called "common language", though understandable by a larger audience, unnecessarily muddies the message. In effect, there is almost no point in saying anything, just find the appropriate section of scripture de jour and say, "This!" No doubt the crowd would "ohhh" and "ahhh" over that but it isn't really that effective, imho.

In regards to the OP, I'm not a fan of any kind of "revelation" regardless of its point of origin. I much prefer realization, as that is something that, if it has any real merit, should be translatable in terms that others can understand. Realization stands (or falls) on its own merits, revelation needs buttressing.

I do agree with you that using fresh wording to put your experiences is quite a valuable gift, as words will change meaning over time due to added associations connected to well-used words. However, that does not mean that being able to relate your experiences back to other historical testimonies has no value in increasing understanding.

I remember going 'round and 'round with you over your term "action personified," and your resistance to relating the "action" part back to the word "karma," even though the original meaning of the word "karma" is "action." Sure, karma has a lot of different "tags" that have been attached to it over time, but your using the term "action personified" and relating it back to "karma" could be quite helpful in knocking off some of those "tags" that have been attached to "karma" over time.

{I hope this makes sense!}

 

[sandandfoam]

Some religions place an emphasis on "revealed truths", by which they generally mean truths revealed by a deity or prophet of a deity. By "emphasis", I mean they subscribe to the notion that their revelations take precedent over someone's direct experience. So, for instance, if someone were to claim to have a direct experience of deity, that experience would be seen as legitimate only in so far as it agreed with, or at least, did not contradict, the religion's reveal truths. At least, that's my understanding of it.

Other religions seem to place an emphasis on direct experience or personal revelation. They subscribe to the notion that such experience or revelation takes precedence over their religion's revealed truths, or scriptures.

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

I imagine that sometimes revealed truths lead to direct experience.

In my understanding of religion prophecy and poetry are synonymous. Here's an example by the high priest Yeates

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from
His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the
Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.[/FONT]

This piece of revelation is a good example of one that is not distinct from the experience of God. Rather it leads me to that experience.

These lines also have a profound impact upon me. I can't say I know or understand why.

Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand.For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

 

[YmirGF]

I do agree with you that using fresh wording to put your experiences is quite a valuable gift, as words will change meaning over time due to added associations connected to well-used words. However, that does not mean that being able to relate your experiences back to other historical testimonies has no value in increasing understanding.

I remember going 'round and 'round with you over your term "action personified," and your resistance to relating the "action" part back to the word "karma," even though the original meaning of the word "karma" is "action." Sure, karma has a lot of different "tags" that have been attached to it over time, but your using the term "action personified" and relating it back to "karma" could be quite helpful in knocking off some of those "tags" that have been attached to "karma" over time.

{I hope this makes sense!}

And now that I know you better and have grown to respect your understanding, I could live with saying, "Action personified, as implied by the original meaning of the word Karma; not as karma has come to be known, but relating to how it may have originally been meant..." So, I guess we are making some progress...

 

[Caladan]

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

Isn't discussing 'direct experience' the same as discussing revealed truth?
Personally I do not find the two to be mutually exclusive. In fact spiritual traditions, or revealed truths could be part of a long continuation of human experience, in which occasionally we enjoy direct experiences of our own.

 

[crossfire]

And now that I know you better and have grown to respect your understanding, I could live with saying, "Action personified, as implied by the original meaning of the word Karma; not as karma has come to be known, but relating to how it may have originally been meant..." So, I guess we are making some progress...

Overcoming aversions! :yes:

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

The only legitimate revealed truth is that which has been revealed to me directly.

So revealed truth and direct experience are the same things.

 

[ChristineES]

It's been my experience that experience leads to revelations.

 

[Vinayaka]

I go with direct experience, and I don't even know what a revelation is.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I go with direct experience, and I don't even know what a revelation is.

A revelation is what some other guy tells you about God and the Meaning of Life. Usually the guy lived long ago and far away and wrote in a now-dead laguage and from within a culture about which we know very little.

For some reason it's easier for us to believe that the ancient guy had a special connection to God which is not possible for us to have. So we need to study his experience with God rather than just going ahead and having our own.

I find it a perplexing piece of business.

 

[nazz]

Some religions place an emphasis on "revealed truths", by which they generally mean truths revealed by a deity or prophet of a deity. By "emphasis", I mean they subscribe to the notion that their revelations take precedent over someone's direct experience. So, for instance, if someone were to claim to have a direct experience of deity, that experience would be seen as legitimate only in so far as it agreed with, or at least, did not contradict, the religion's reveal truths. At least, that's my understanding of it.

Other religions seem to place an emphasis on direct experience or personal revelation. They subscribe to the notion that such experience or revelation takes precedence over their religion's revealed truths, or scriptures.

Which to my mind, raises an interesting question: Which do you think should take precedence? Revealed truths or direct experience? Why?

Why can't revealed truths be directly experienced? Why the dichotomy?

But I do understand what you mean by people rejecting things that don't line up with the Scriptures (or better said, their interpretation of their Scriptures). I've also been told by more than one that there is no way I had any direct experience of Christ since I don't subscribe to fundamentalism.