Direct methods, such as yoga, tantra, dzogchen and others, were always created by people who had known and felt the need to help others on the path of self-realization, which they themselves had already walked.
Tantra works deeply with feelings, dzogchen with the mind, physical yoga therapeutically releases into consciousness muscle tensions created by the mental defense mechanism described by psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich, etc. The question is, is it pure chance or purpose? It is a purpose, among many others. People who have compiled these systems and people who practice them as paths of self-development and self-realization have recognized this, as they have had and have direct experience with it.
“The skeptic often gets stuck in his beliefs, while his own problems remain unresolved.”
Today’s scientific study of physical yoga, meditation and their benefits is reminiscent of a physicist trying to understand the universe and its principles, which was created by a more conscious being. It is just a metaphor, but yoga, meditation and other teachings that allow for direct experience are and work, but it is as if society (especially the professional one, such as doctors and psychologists) had a problem accepting them until they have some objective evidence about them. In contrast, the physicist is amazed and awed by the beauty.
“Experience is rare, but almost everyone has an opinion.”
The first problem is arrogance and the second is ignorance, or rather, overlooking, unwillingness and lack of one’s own experience. A person who has no personal experience and only forms an opinion on these things has nothing to build on, simply does not understand. Moreover, a higher state of consciousness always understands a lower one, but a lower one does not understand a higher one. So, if our development and consciousness are not sufficient, we do not understand even though we may have a lot of knowledge, titles, schools, and reputation. Here these things do not count. They mean nothing.
“He who waits for objective proof of love before daring to fall in love will wait forever watching the lovers.”
The third problem is that it is not possible to bring proof, as we are accustomed to, of that which is not graspable by our senses and intellect, yet is graspable by our intelligence. We have only exchanged intelligence for intellect and senses for sensors that prove the existence or non-existence of something.
“Intelligence is much more than intellect.”
Intellect is a kind of intelligence, but not the whole of intelligence, and its function is to distinguish. In order to function, discrimination needs forms and opposites, such as up and down, full and empty, etc. But the moment it hits zero and infinity, it starts to have a problem. Once I was watching a show on Netflix where mathematicians admitted that they don’t understand infinity. They can calculate it, they perceive the effects of its existence, but they don’t understand what zero and infinity are, their existence. In the same way, an unconscious psychiatrist or psychologist can understand a few manifestations of human nature that he can grasp with his intellect and translate them into words. But he does not understand what that nature is, what that reality is. Here words end. It would be surprising if it could be translated into the system of sounds that every language actually is. Here science and doctrine end and the knowing of that which lies beyond the senses and intellect, mysticism, begins. Every person who loves depth and truth has a natural feeling for mysticism. Every person who loves his ego, certainty and abilities, also loves opinion and argumentation reminiscent of evidence.
“Why are we so afraid of our own direct experience?”
If scientists, doctors and psychologists had their own inner practices, we would witness a new renaissance of all these fields. I once read a book from a meeting that C.G.Jung led with other invited scientists from other fields sometime in the thirties of the last century. The meeting was about so-called kundalini yoga. Right at the beginning, Jung asked everyone to talk only about the state of consciousness that roughly corresponds to the heart chakra, because none of them had any experience with it beyond that. Even though the participants of the meeting were carefully selected to be open-minded people, it was surprising how afraid they actually were of yoga. They wanted to discuss
