Why Speaking About One’s Spiritual Experiences Can Be Counter-Productive to the Sadhana

It is a quite natural impulse. An individual has an extraordinary, unusual and in some cases, inexplicable experience, outside of his normal realm of experiences. Either through vital enthusiasm, a feeling of ego-aggrandisement due to the extraordinary nature of the experience, or through sense of fear or concern about what the experience is and what significance it has, he wants to communicate it to others. There is a very strong ego-driver that can motivate this need to describe, explain and otherwise take credit for having had the experience. The individual is also frequently being encouraged by others to talk about it, and there is a type of vital and emotional validation that can accompany a discussion about an experience.

The seeker who does this, however, often finds that the inner power that was acting seems to have dissipated or withdrawn at that time. There is a mechanism at work here. The spiritual force works in its native element and is most effective when it is not being watered down through interpretation, transcription or some kind of mental process. One can almost see it as a high power electrical line going through a ‘step down” transformer. In this case, the mind and the emotional-vital relation of the event means that it has been filtered, analyzed and otherwise subjected to the mind’s process. It moves the experience from a spiritual energy into a mental memory or explanation. In so doing, the seeker has short-circuited the action of the force.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “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 is going on because it wastes the experience, there is what they call ksaya of the tapasya. It is only long past experiences that they speak of and even that not too freely.”

“The Light left you because you spoke of it to someone who was not an adhikari. 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.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter VII Growth of Consciousness, Inner Experiences, pp. 141-142