A QUERY: What is the relationship between Insight and ordinary experience and ordinary understanding?

APHORISM #1: There is no relationship between Insight and ordinary experience and understanding; however, if one does not relate Insight, in some way, to the qualities of thinking, feeling and willing and, therefore, to understanding and experience, how will a person find this pointer called Insight meaningful?

COMMENTARY: Ordinary experience is achieved through the senses and the emotions and ordinary understanding is achieved through the mind and intellect. Insight has no relationship to the senses or emotions whatsoever, nor does it have a relationship to a knower knowing a particular object of knowledge. It is outside the pale of this triad.

APHORISM #2: This is why the ancient sages refer to Ultimate Reality as Sat (Existence), Chit (Consciousness and Ananda (Bliss) – because then it has some relationship to thinking, willing and feeling. However, they were also quick to point out that the Ultimate Knowledge cannot be reduced to these expressions or attributes, or any others.

APHORISM #3: Some sages have referred to Insight as knowledge by Identity. By this is meant knowledge that has no division within it – One now is the Ultimate Knowledge or put in Vedic terminology, Atman is Brahman.

COMMENTARY: To say that one "experiences" the Ultimate Knowledge is highly misleading. To say that one "understands" the Ultimate Knowledge is also highly misleading. This is why Shankara says that Insight is "The Understander of understanding." He might also have said, "The Experiencer of experience."

APHORISM #4: Anytime you do not identify with, or fixate upon, an experience or a conceptual understanding, you are automatically falling back on the Self. Some traditions call this the process of Self-Remembering. At a certain point, there is a flip-flop and then all experiences and concepts are correctly "Seen" as existing in the Self.

APHORISM #5: The presence of attachments or negative emotions is living proof that one is still identified with inner and outer experiences and concepts and to the "I" around which they seemingly congregate. The only solution to this intense suffering is to immediately cease all identification and fall back on the Self.

APHORISM #6: In other words, do not fool yourself with thoughts of "I am the Existent" or "I am Brahman." Shankara warns the student that such thoughts still exist in the intellect and are not That!

COMMENTARY: If you are honest with yourself, you will know if you have permanently and completely left the realm of identification and attachment. If you find that you have not, and this leaves you discouraged or disappointed, use that precious moment to cease that particular identification. In this way, one does not backslide through this insidious form of negativity called self-doubt.

APHORISM #7: Intellectual understanding of the Ultimate Knowledge is the first important step in achieving enlightenment. This constitutes the steps of listening and reflection. But then one must meditate on this knowledge in relationship to each outer experience and each inner thought and emotion that transpires each moment of every day. The capacity to engage in this kinds of constant, active meditation depends on the student having developed four prerequisites: 1) discernment between the Real and the unreal, 2) dispassion and equanimity, 3) the stabilization of the various moral and ethical precepts or virtues and 4) a passion for enlightenment.