Experience vs Understanding

Everyone has heard stories from people who claim to have visited other worlds not at all like our own and apparently not limited by physical laws. Some claim that they visited heaven after they died then came back to life (and back to the physical world) after meeting Jesus, God, angels or dead people. We have also heard stories about visits to our world from angels or other beings as well. Most of these stories involve some sort of message being conveyed from this other world, or worlds, to our own world.

Our history is permiated with such stories, and most of our religions are based upon them. So clearly they are important. But given that no two independent sources ever tell truly coinciding stories - they are consistently inconsistent - what are we to believe? Should we pick and choose? Or just ignore them all? Well, here is a solution that I think makes perfect sense, and yet is seldom considered simply because it might be too obvious.

Instead of looking to what we experience - either personally or vicariously - for insight into the nature and source of our existence, we should look at our personal and innermost understanding of things instead. This is commonly called intuition (though emotional experience is often confused with intuition. especially when it is consiquetly rationalized, it is not the same thing).

I am speaking about genuine intuition; the kind we typically ignore in the face of our experiences, emotions, and reason. It is impossible to define this in terms of experience, and yet experience itself is defined by it.

There is no easy way to say what intuition is, but I can - and often do - say what it is not. My only point here though is not to harp on what intuition is, or isn't; but, rather to just point out that the big mysteries in life don't seem so mysterious at all, when you stop relying on experience, and hence judgement, to try to understand. Looking to experience, whether they are "real", "emotional" or "spiritual" (e.g. dreams too) only confuses things, because all experiences are mere eminations (as proven by science and romanticized by poets), or dreamlike. So experience, not even so-called "reality", cannot be relied upon to inform us of our true nature, or the true nature of our existence or origin.

I hope this makes sense, because it is an important and fundamental concept that relates directly to the source of all confusion and, hence, suffering. the more we look to our experiences for understanding the more we suffer from confusion. The more we trust the source of all experience, the more we grow toward peace and understanding. I'm not saying anything different here than what our sages (Jesus, Buddha, etc...) have been saying all along. I'm just repeating an age old message, in hopes that you will hear.