Something I posted here a few years ago that seems revelant to this discussion. TOm
Ignorance is nothing more that our ability to ignore that which we already are. A great many spiritual people have some pretty outstanding experiences, which cause them to move to deeper understandings. The key here is that all experiences are in, of, by, and about the relative. Those experiences do make a difference and move people to some relative understanding of who we are. When Self knows Self, this happens on the other side of the line. It is the absolute knowing itself. When that happens understanding gets imprinted on this small self physiology of the magnitude of what has happened, thus making it impossible to ignore who and what we have always been. The key is that if there is any doubt then the relative side of who we are has not yet had the clear understanding to make it unmistakable, undeniable and self-validating. Awakening is not an experience but an understanding brought about through clarity. A quote from Jean Klein from his book I AM page 85. "In an experience there is still an experiencer who is stuck in the pattern of going in and out of states. Global understanding is the sudden awareness that the perceiver of these states is unaffected by them, that they appear in the perceiver. This insight occurs in a flash when all the fragments preventing us from understanding, yet which point towards it, unfold in the uninvolved witness. Awareness is the essential element allowing non-understanding to become understanding. It does not result from accumulation as when we learn something, a language or an instrument, for example. It is instantaneous like a flash of lightning where the various elements preceding it are suddenly seen simultaneously and are re-orchestrated, just as the particles drawn by a magnet fall into a pattern when they become attached to it. This sudden vision can eliminate all previous problems without leaving the slightest shadow of non-understanding. This resorption into total understanding releases all the energies usually molded into set patterns and opens the way towards ultimate truth, oneness." (Tom comments, we could also use Wholeness or Fullness in lieu of Oneness.) Patanjali via Alistair Shearer verse 55 and last of Chapter 3, Expansion. Which is where all the sidhis are enumerated and is of course the prescribed result of practicing them which is why it is the last verse of this chapter. "And when the translucent intellect is as pure as the Self, there is Enlightenment"
