Beyond Experiencing Experiences

Life is a continuous stream of experiences. We experience a variety of things in and through whatever we do in life. Indeed, we are driven to the world for experiences. What is the significance of this experiencing? Is there something beyond this experiencing experiences? Let us investigate.

Every act of experience is based on three essential conditions: the experiencer and the experienced object both must exist; the experiencer must be conscious of both oneself and the object; and the experience must produce either a happy or a sad emotion in the experiencer. If we dive deeper, we will find that existence of the experiencer, consciousness of the experiencer and an acute awareness of one's own emotions are prerequisites for any experience. Without these prerequisites, there is no possibility of an experience even if the object of experience is available. These prerequisite attributes of the experiencer do not change from one experience to the other. Variety of experiences are, however, produced by the interaction of these constant experiencer’s attributes with the changing variety of experienced objects. In other words, the experiencer does not change, while the objects of experiences change.

These constant attributes of the experiencer act like a blank screen on which variety of objects produce variety of images. Just as changing images have no effect on the screen, these experiences also have no power to affect the experiencer. However, our current life experience does not agree with this finding. This is due to our involvement in the experiences. It is as if the screen develops liking for an image being projected. Now the screen will experience happiness so long as the image lasts and then will cry for it when it disappears. It may also start fearing those images that it does not want to be projected. It starts defining itself through these images. The screen has now forgotten its original nature possessing those changeless attributes.

While experiencing happiness or sadness, we too have forgotten our original nature of beingness, consciousness, and unbroken emotional awareness. We are now involved in each of our experiences. We define our identity through these experiences and suffer. We feel helpless and accept this way of living as our destiny.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this trap. We may start using each experience to remind ourselves of our essential nature and its attributes. I am experiencing this experience because I exist, I am conscious, and I am constantly aware of all my emotions. This practice with time will shift the focus from objects of experience to the experiencer. The shift may be gradual depending upon the sincerity and consistency of this practice. The quality of life will also improve accordingly. Success and rewards would become unintended side-effects of this process. And, we will start going beyond experiencing experiences.