Turn All Things To Honey: The Way of Self-Knowing

Abstract

In India, as in the West, metaphysical thinkers tried to determine the nature of the highest truth by the intellect. But in India, mental thinking was not given "the supreme rank as an instrument in the discovery of truth, but only a secondary status. The first rank [was] always given to spiritual intuition and illumination and spiritual experience; an intellectual conclusion that contradict[ed] this supreme authority [was] held invalid." Thus the heart of the Self was "lost by the over-intellectuality of the mind of Europe" (Aurobindo). This paper focuses on the author's own spiritual experience and search for spiritual intuition and illumination. It emphasizes the teachings of the spiritual counselor and healer, Larry Wayne. The key to self-knowing for Wayne and the author was not the intellect but the turning of "all things to honey," the experience of the fullness of delight made possible only by self-love.