Experience… what is it, and why do we exclusively depend upon it? A lot of people say, “I’ve learned from experience”; or they say, “I will learn from my experiences.” Many people go on expensive and lengthy vacations to far distant places to get “exotic experiences.”
Experiencing has its place. However, it is very limited. Many crave “new” experiences… but are such experiences — all based on patterns of recognition — really all that “new”? I am suggesting that fundamentally, intrinsically, they are all very much the same and are not really so “new”; they all depend on — and add to — patterns within the field of the mundane known. (That is why many of us retain a deep, inherent sadness, even though we travel to places that should seem new and exciting. Merely existing as a brain that is based primarily on patterns and the recognition of patterns… is sorrow. But that is what most of us were trained to exist as.) Most of us were brainwashed to crave various “wonderful” experiences (i.e., more and more experiences)… through commercials, magazines, examples in books, and by what friends and relatives say and do. (Experiences are never enough, though, because they are essentially limited. But nobody tells you that.)
Evading experience (on the other hand) can be a very childish thing, wherein one endlessly sits cross-legged, for example, thinking that one is accomplishing something special. (You know… all that phony so-called meditation stuff, which is really a glorified form of self-hypnosis.)
Is the experiencer all so separate from what the experience is? If one examines intelligently, the answer is rather obvious: “No.” We look with (and “as”) accumulated patterns and labels at things, pigeonhole them in the rather musty memory bank system and call the experience “new.” To really see something new, perception itself must be dynamically new, fundamentally different, and not based on old, stale systems (and patterns) of observation. Most people are incapable of that, and you don’t get it by sitting in a corner with your legs crossed. Additionally, you don’t get it by reading traditional so-called “religious” books that have been severely distorted over time.
There is a deep, orderly intelligence that is a true spiritual blossoming that is beyond the thoughts and fabrications of man… beyond all of the rituals, stone temples, and concocted patterns. (Those fabrications are all old, and the timeless, miraculous new does not dwell as them.) Deep intelligence is a dynamic harmony, a deep order that effortlessly flows between experiencing and going beyond experiencing. (Constant experiencing and “accumulating” only builds up the illusion of the self.) The “going beyond experiencing” factor (or dimension) is never planned or mentally arranged for. Deep, spontaneous newness and dynamic creativity are never part of a plan or contrived methodology.
Wildflower Pods … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
There is nothing really new under the sun. Meditation has different forms and variations. For example, I meditate to engage in deeper thinking and reflection about life and others concepts I find interesting and inspiring.
Intelligence has nothing to do with religion or spiritual because you can’t measure intelligence by no means but we can equate to some standard set by mankind. Great post, agreed with most of it though😊
There is a “newness” that is truly new and timeless; it is beyond the fabrications of man. Words and mental images cannot touch it.
There are different forms of meditation, but most of them are very limited; some — even some of the most popular kinds — are even a glorified form of self-hypnosis. In legitimate meditation, that is not merely a learned concoction, you cannot know that you are meditating, because such true meditation is beyond the field of the known and knowledge.
Though it cannot be measured by the instruments of man, there is a great intelligence that is of deep compassion and order (and that is truly sacred in the deepest sense). You do not need to measure the sun to realize its presence and immense significance. 🙂 Someone who was raised deep within a cave all of his life, and who had never gone out of the cave, may well argue that no such thing as the sun exists. A lot of people live in the dark, these violent and barbaric days… (if, by any measure, you want to call that living).
I hear so much about millennials every day – not to knock them, but they seem to put down or act condescending about what we were content to have for our life experiences … they opt for experiential getaways – they kick our prior experiences and contentment up a notch.