The Nature and Importance of Experience

What is Experience? Why is it important and how does it play a role in the development of Mind? Well, as I explained in the previous posting, Experience is that which results when matter interacts with the environment. Experience is the input data used by Mind to enable Matter attain a realization of its own Being. Without Experience, Mind remains inert and consequently Matter cannot realize its own being. It is important to note that following our definition of life, all Matter – organic or not, possess life. Taking the human being as a case study, examples of how Experience defines the human beings realization of the self are: the use of sight, sound, speech, smell and touch. These attributes, which are obtained from the interaction between certain parts of the body and the external environment, are all subject to the law of evolution. The law of evolution is the law of interaction. Under its omnipresent influence, all that is contained within Creation must interact in order to preserve its state of dynamism. The fact that the human being is able to interact using the property of sight, sound, speech, smell and touch, is only due to the fact that it happens to arbitrarily posses the appropriate organs to enable the realization of certain types of Experience, which we arbitrarily label sound, smell and so on. It could just as easily have been otherwise.

We have stated that the Mind is unchanging. It is a reservoir of energy without purpose or direction but waiting to be used. The input of Experience gives it direction and purpose. Consequently, work is performed. Experience defines the world we live in. With regards to sentient Matter, taste, touch, sight, smell and sound are all types of Experiences that are made possible by the level of complexity of certain organs, i.e. tongue, skin, eye, nose and ear. This implies that the level of complexity of Matter enables the realization of certain types of Experiences. This is because since Matter can assume an infinite number of complex variations, it can realize Experience in an infinite number of ways. More importantly, the link between Matter and Mind through Experience implies that Matter will never reach its full potential until the Mind is fully developed.

To give a clear example of how Experience plays a vital role in shaping our lives, we shall follow the hypothetical life of a human being from birth through adolescence, adulthood and finally death.
At the instant just before a baby is born into the world, it is blind to everything – all sensations, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. The only thing it has to go by are the sensations experienced in the womb of its mother. These sensations prepare its Mind for what is to come when birth finally occurs. At birth the baby’s Mind is still not developed. By this I mean, that even though at birth the baby’s Mind has already formed all the various aspects – subconscious, subjective, objective, etc, courtesy of the complexity of its organs, it is unable to express itself because it’s Mind hasn’t had the requisite input of data in the form of Experience. The baby however is Aware. And so what one observes is that the baby is constantly interacting with the environment – gurgling, laughing, grunting, crying, staring, moving its limbs, etc, in an attempt to use its Awareness to feed its Mind with Experiences (which we must remember it is compelled to do by virtue of the active principle of Evolution that permeates its Being). The result is that its Mind becomes strengthened with each passing moment. Consequently, a personality that is unique to the child slowly begins to emerge which is a function of the Experiences that have been fed to the Mind.

This brings us to a crucial point. And this is that the uniqueness of the baby’s personality is a direct consequence of the Experiences that are fed into its Mind. Acknowledging the fact that each human being is unique, i.e. subtly different in physical make up, this implies that all human beings will realize the same Experience in a unique way. In other words, for example, if asked to look upon a random object, say, a stone, every human being will perceive it differently because the physical make up of the eye of each person varies in a very subtle manner. The same applies to the sense of smell, tasting, and so on.
And so coming back to the baby, we find that as the years go by, the baby is able to increasingly express itself from a unique perspective and thus it develops a personality that is unique to it only. When the baby reaches adolescence, and becomes a teenager however, its personality undergoes significant change, which will stay with it for the rest of its life. It is a change that provides the teenager with the tool to deepen its Mind and in the process realize its own Being even more fully. This is a crucial time in the life of the teenager because whatever is experienced during this period will define how well he or she is able to realize and balance all aspects of Mind. This in turn will determine how well the teenager is able to interact with his/her self and the external environment i.e. society.

So why does the child’s personality undergo such drastic change during its adolescence? Well the reason is that during this period, in preparation for progression into adulthood, the body produces hormones, which act as catalysts for the introduction of major changes to the overall Matter composition of the body. The teenager gets bigger in size, puts on more bones and muscle, becomes more masculine or feminine, etc. The change in the Matter composition of the body results in an increase in complexity of the total Matter composition of the body. Thus, this will result in a consequent change in the perception and interpretation of any subsequent Experience obtained from interaction with the environment. This change in perception and interpretation of Experience is what results in a change of the personality. Note that the frame of the personality will remain the same but the depth of the frame will change.

Since the personality is the sum total of all aspects of Mind, a change in depth of the personality will affect the growth of the various aspects of Mind. If the depth of the personality changes uniformly then this implies a balanced personality. In reality however, this is not usually the case. During adolescence, the body grows so fast and the world suddenly seems different – almost alien, so much so, that in a bid to adapt, the teenager is forced to favour certain experiences over others. This leads to an unbalanced personality. After coming out of adolescence, the teenager subconsciously spends the rest of his or her life seeking out those experiences that will restore the simple balance of pre-teen years. The teenager will have the best opportunity to find this balance in old age in the years leading up to death for the simple reason that the body growth has virtually ceased and change in perception of experienced has slowed considerably.

It is important to bear in mind that an unbalanced personality is the hallmark of evolving complex matter. And as such there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It is inevitable. However, where it becomes a problem is with regards to the traits in promotes in human beings that run contrary to the progression of society a single unit. Some of these traits are greed, selfishness, lust for power, and so on, all of which, it must be noted are natural and only become disruptive when viewed in the context of the greater good – the Group.

So the question now becomes: how can the flaws in human nature, which are caused by an unbalanced personality, be corrected so that all members of society can co-exist in harmony leading to the elimination of social injustice and inequality? Well, the answer lies in learning to embrace and actively seek out all types of Experiences since different types of Experiences develop different aspects of the Mind. This will eliminate fear, uncertainty and guilt, which in turn will allow each human being to explore, without reservation, the self and the environment. This implies that that the human being will have put himself or herself in the best possible position to obey the prime directive of Creation, which is to evolve. The human being will experience a total realization of all aspects of his or her Mind. And this will result in perfect harmony with all Life.

This is the ultimate goal of every human being. It is what we subconsciously strive to do with our every waking breadth. All our endeavours in reacting to demand by trying to understand the self, the environment in which we live and how the two interact, is in response to our desire to achieve perfect harmony with all life. The best period in which to learn how to achieve this is just before adolescence. Our children must be taught to embrace all experiences in order to eliminate fear. When fear is eliminated, a strong, clear and balanced sense of self is established. In other words, all the facets of the personality, which is Matter’s realization of its self will be fully recognized and acknowledged. More importantly however, our children must be taught to interpret their experiences with respect to the expectations of the Group will i.e. of society’s will. This is the only way to preserve harmony within the self and with society. It is the only way forward. It is the only way to eliminate poverty, uneven distribution of wealth, crime and all the ills of society.