Principles
The Principle of Experience
Few have considered that experience is a principle or explained it as such, but indeed it is.
Why?
Because the understanding of what experience actually is leads to the unfolding of many other truths.
What exactly is the Principle of Experience?
Experience is consciousness interacting with creation on some level and registering meaning therefrom. Exact repetition is not usually counted as experience for true experience leads us to new situations and understandings.
This is an important principle because it explains so much. It even explains why God created the universe. The universe is merely a vehicle for the One Great Life, and all lives contained within, to gain experience.
And why does all life crave experience?
Because life is pretty dull without it. If a life is not having new experiences it will stagnate until something drives it forward into something new again.
We are in the image of God and here is what God says he does to have new experiences:
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. Revelation 21:5
He said: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the days of old. Behold, I will do a NEW thing; now it shall spring forth….” (Isa 43:18-19)
God continually makes “new covenants” and says: “I create NEW heavens and a NEW earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.” (Isa 65:17) He creates the city of the New Jerusalem and commands us to sing a “new song.”
We shall live in a new heaven, a new earth and a new city, but this is just the beginning. Creation has provided for us a vehicle that allows us to have an unlimited number of new and unique experiences. The experiences we can have are only limited by our imagination and our imagination is unlimited. This is true because the imagination of God, in whose image we are, is also unlimited. If you want to see the imagination of God at work just take a look at pictures taken by the Hubble telescope for the macrocosm, or an electron microscope for the microcosm.
Experience is the reason for existence and all life needs it like it needs air, food and water. After we are deprived of it for any length of time we begin to desire it and move toward it. If nothing new is available we will manufacture it. This is what we do in our dreams. There we are asleep lying perfectly still, recharging our batteries and even in this situation we crave experience. We need it so much that our imagination takes over and creates silly dreams for us.
When we wake up we realize that the dream was not real as far as physical reality is concerned, but something was real.
And what is that?
Even in the dream state the dreamer has a real experience. If you dream you are fishing you have a real experience just as you have a real experience when fishing while awake. The two experiences may be different in degree, but they are both real experiences nevertheless.
Philosophers have argued for centuries as to whether this life is an illusion like a dream, but as far as experience goes it does not matter. Whether we are in illusion or not we are having an experience.
If you race a make believe car in a video game and then a real one on a track you are having an experience in both cases and it matters not if the ingredients are illusion or real. The experience is always real
Spinoza said that the one thing he knew that was real was thought and made the famous statement, “I think, therefore, I am.”
Thought, life and experience are all interrelated for without experience thought alone is meaningless. We could indeed reword his statement as follows:
“I experience, therefore, I am.”
The fascinating thing about experience is that each one is somewhat new and different. If there is not some newness or some change then it is not registered as an experience.
Every life in the universe is a part of the universal mind of God and each life is going through a unique experience, different from every other life. Our job is to have a new experience that the mind of God can savor and relish. Then when the trillions of lives experience all that can practically be experienced the universe will fold up and God will rest and dream which will lead to a new and more diverse universe where we will yet experience new and fascinating things beyond what we can now imagine.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein
Copyright 2016 by J J Dewey
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