...it is possible that a person could lead their whole life and never experienced such an intellectual and emotional experience.
coberst: "I think that our schools and colleges have never taught us how to uderstand and it is possible that a person could lead their whole life and never experienced such an intellectual and emotional experience"
A kind of understanding:
In the early years of life, we are flooded with information that older kids take for granted. One of the things we're taught is subtraction. To begin with, it's not easy to see what 5 minus 6 means. How can such a thing be? If there are only 5 cookies on the plate, how can we take away 6? Then, eventually, by applying the concept to suitable examples in concrete reality, we understand it. Speaking for myself, I don't recall ever having an associated emotional experience with such a realisation - unless you count the relief that came with knowing that I wouldn't have to redo loads of sums with red crosses beside them!
A tale of a different kind of understanding:
Then there's a different kind of understanding. When I was in my late teens, I wanted to understand what existence meant - I mean I really wanted to know - you know, "life, the universe and everthing", as Douglas Adams put it. Actually, it was driving me nuts. I 'knew' that there was nothing to reality beyond the concrete. I 'knew' that everthing 'real' could be explained in concrete terms, and that anything 'other' was unreal. My difficulty was in the fact that it wasn't enough to justify (for me) the universe and everything in it. There was an absence of a profound purpose. I set about trying to see the world through the eyes of people who claimed differently. I attended various church services - Methodist, Evangelist, Catholic and so on - and Quaker meetings. I read all kinds of literature - the Bible, the Koran, Madam Blavatsky's works on Theosophy, Hindu texts, Buddhists texts (Indian, Tibetan, Japanese), various philosophers. I listened to many debates on TV and radio. The net product: an abundance of knowledge...and no understanding.
Then, one day...I picked up a couple of books on yoga. One was on raja yoga, the other on hatha yoga. After spending a few days getting the theoretical gist of it, I began with the hatha yoga exercises/meditation (half-hour mornings, hour and a half evenings) and established a compatible regime of living. What I experienced during the periods of meditation was an intimate awareness of the 'other', which had eluded me through all my studious efforts. Within a very short time, people who had been a real pain in the butt became very likeable. The days were physically brighter. The world changed. There was a vibrant peace. My mind had opened to the 'other'. This, indeed, was an understanding that had concomitant emotional content of the most sublime nature.
