Sharing spiritual experiences with others

Spiritual experiences provide us with a path to the realization of a higher consciousness within us.   Discussing such experiences freely in public is not advised because the power that one has gained through the experience dissipates.  These are the remarks of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother on this matter:

The Mother cautions on sharing spiritual experiences with others

The modern rationalistic mind looks askance at the tradition – common to all spiritual culture – of not publicising one’s spiritual experiences. It sees in this injunction an unnecessary attempt at mystification of experiences which, on the other hand, should be boldly submitted to the open scrutiny of reason from as many angles as possible. All experiences or happenings claiming to be spiritual must be recorded, analysed and verified objectively before they can be accepted. Hence, we are told, there should be no secrecy about these things. It is a superstition with unwholesome consequences and should be done away with.

The truth of the matter, however, is different. Secrecy about one’s inner experiences is enjoined for very strong reasons. Spiritual experience always proceeds from a realm that is beyond the mind and it has its own ways of working which cannot be seized by the mental reason. To seek to understand it, to give it a thought-form is to interfere with its spontaneity. That puts a certain determination over the flow of the experience. It is much worse when one speaks of it to another. When one does so, a whole set of operations is set into motion: the understanding, the thought vibrations, the reactions (mental and vital), the feelings of curiosity or envy for example, the good-will or bad-will, – all these start flowing from the person spoken to and they cannot but have a direct effect on the experience. Its duration, its direction, its intensity, all are subjected to the impact of these movements surging upon it from outside and the experience gets weakened, modified if not interrupted.

[M.P. Pandit, Mother of Love, Vol 2, Page 182-183]

Sri Aurobindo on the same subject in various letters to disciples

1. The usual rule given by yogis is that one should not speak of one’s experience to others except of course the Guru while the sadhana(practice) is going on because it wastes the experience, there is what they call kşaya (reduction) of the tapasya (austerity). It is only long past experiences that they speak of and even that not too freely.

2. The Light left you because you spoke of it to someone who was not an adhikārī (spiritually qualified) It is safest not to speak of these experiences except to a Guru or to one who can help you. The passing away of an experience as soon as it is spoken of is a frequent happening and for that reason many yogis make it a rule never to speak of what happens within them, unless it is a thing of the past or a settled realisation that nothing can take away. A settled permanent realisation abides, but these were rather things that come to make possible an opening in the consciousness to something more complete – to prepare it for realisation.

3. I thought it was understood that what I wrote to you about persons was private. Experiences one’s own or others’ if one comes to know of them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some spiritual profit to others and even then if they are experiences of the past that one can speak of them. Otherwise it becomes like news of Abyssinia or Spain, something common and trivial for the vital mass-mind to chew or gobble.

4. If you want to keep the joy, it will be wise not to speak of it to others. Things spoken about get wings and try to escape.

5. To show what is written about experiences or to speak about one’s experiences to others is always risky. They are much better kept to oneself.

6. There is a separate question and that is the telling of one’s own experiences to others. That too is very much discouraged by most yogis – they say it is harmful to the sadhana(practice). I have certainly seen and heard of any number of instances in which people were having a flow of experiences and, when they told it, the flow was lost – so there must be something in this objection. I suppose however it ceases to apply after one has reached a certain long-established stability in the experience, that is to say when the experience amounts to a definite and permanent realisation, something finally and irrevocably added to the consciousness. I notice that those who keep their experiences to themselves and do not put themselves out on others seem to have a more steady sadhana than others, but I don’t know whether it is an invariable rule. It would probably not apply any longer after a certain stage of realisation.

Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga – II: Experiences and Realisations – VII