This thought came to me at the Kumbh Mela. I went there with a few of my friends at the end of Jan 2025 and after taking a dip in the river and walking around, we decided to rest in one of the large tents - I recollect that the one we chose belonged to the Yogoda Foundation (“Autobiography of a Yogi”).
The discussion between us started like these discussions usually do. Which deity should one worship? What is the right path? Bhakti or jnana? What is the highest goal? What really happens when someone attains moksha?
It was an interesting discussion. But after a point, I felt a little strange.
All of us were speaking with a lot of confidence about things none of us had actually experienced.
We were repeating things we had read somewhere, heard in a discourse, picked up from our families, or absorbed from tradition. Someone had said it in a book hundreds or thousands of years ago. Someone else had commented on it. Then someone else had explained that commentary. And now here we were, sitting in 2026, speaking as though we knew what we were talking about.
That bothered me.
Not because the old books are useless. Not because tradition has no value. But because it suddenly felt very theoretical.
- We do not speak the same language as the people who wrote those texts.
- We do not live their lives.
- We do not see the world the way they did.
- Our minds are shaped by modern life, phones, work, stress, traffic, deadlines, and a thousand distractions.
If an alien landed on earth and heard some of these stories for the first time, he would probably think they were fairy tales.
And honestly, sometimes I feel that too.
So then what are we really doing when we debate all this?
Very often, we are just moving ideas around.
Nothing wrong with that. Thinking has its place. Reading has its place. Debate has its place. But at some point, if nothing is experienced, it all starts to feel second-hand.
That is where I keep coming back to the same thought: experience has to matter more than theory.
If someone has actually become quieter, steadier, less ego-driven, less reactive, more prayerful, more inward, I am more interested in that than in how many spiritual books he has read or how neatly he can explain the difference between one path and another, or whether one deity trumped another in a fight, or the names of the 10 sons of some sage.
But then another problem comes up.
If experience is what matters, where do we begin to work ourselves towards that experience?
We have to begin somewhere. And that “somewhere” usually comes from a book, a teacher, a tradition, a mantra, a method, a story.
In other words, the path to experience in my understanding also begins second-hand.
So are we being hypocritical when we say experience matters more than theory, while beginning from theory anyway?
My take? I do not think so. I think that is just how human life works.
Nobody starts from direct experience.
In anything.
- A child learns music from someone else.
- A student learns science from a textbook.
- Someone begins meditation because another person said, “Sit quietly and try.”
The beginning is usually borrowed. But it should not remain borrowed forever.
That, to me, is the key difference.
There is nothing wrong with starting from a book. The problem is when we never move beyond the book. When the words become enough.
I think the decline starts when repeating the map becomes more important than walking the path.
When reciting the Bhagavad Gita is waaaaaaaaaaay more important than living by its tenets.
So many compositions of Karnataka’s Bhakti saints start with “recite the name of Rama, don’t forget Rama’s name, Rama’s name is the only medicine you need, etc. etc.” … but I see that singing the composition is 100 times more popular than sitting quietly and chanting Rama’s name :/
I feel that spiritual books are not the destination. They are a starting point. A suggestion. A pointer. A rough map left behind by someone who saw something we have not yet seen.
That feels more honest to me.
It also makes me a little less interested in debate for its own sake.
Because debate can go on forever. One person quotes one text. Another quotes another. One says this deity is supreme. Another says all paths are one. Someone insists on one method. Someone else dismisses it. It never ends.
And meanwhile, the mind remains exactly the same.
- Same fears.
- Same restlessness.
- Same ego.
- Same confusion.
So what did all that theory really do?
That day at the Kumbh, this became very clear to me. If all the discussions, books, debates, discourses, etc. … if none of it leads to practice, and if practice leads to no inner change, then it all starts to feel a bit hollow.
Because theory, without experience, remains someone else’s truth.
Thank you!