Thought, Feeling, and Knowing

Suppose we think we want to eat an orange. Then perhaps we go to the fruit basket and take one, perhaps we don't. Or suppose we merely imagine what an orange might taste like—though we've never eaten one—then we don't know what an orange actually tastes like. But if we have truly eaten a juicy orange, then we know. We truly know.

When we try to convey that taste to someone else, no matter how many metaphors, similes, or comparisons we employ, language ultimately reaches its limit. We can say—"it's like that," "it tastes something like this"—but the real truth of experience cannot be captured in words. Because knowing is direct experience, not description.

No matter how much another may cast doubt on the truth of our experience, experience itself never bows to argument. Even those who say the orange is merely an illusion, that there is no 'someone' to have 'eaten' it at all—even their words cannot deny the experience itself.

The essential point is this: the same applies to spiritual awakening. Thinking about it, forming various ideas about it—these may be steps on the path, but they are not true 'knowing.' Even feeling or belief is not true knowing. Only experience—direct perception—is the sole path to knowledge.

So if you wish to know, or if you once knew but have forgotten after long years, then seek out that orchard of life. There will surely be some compassionate soul who points you toward an orange and asks—"would you like one?"—and there, precisely there, your direct knowing will begin.