Evidence vs. Self-Evidence -- Including the Insight of Undivided Existence

1. Starting Point: Self-Evidence

• Primary experience: Existence itself
  • resting in the feeling of being,
  • undisturbed by irrelevant thoughts,
  • self-evident and immediate,
  • forms the ultimate starting point for all understanding.

2. Sudden Insight: "All is One"

• Experience: "All that appears separate is actually a single Existence without parts."
• Character:
  • self-evident, immediate, not dependent on argument or evidence
  • same type of primary certainty as the basic experience of Existence
  • realization is not a synthesis of parts, but the direct apprehension of undivided existence.

3. Relation to External Statements

• Mediation: statements, texts, traditions can reinforce, inspire, or challenge the experience.
• Immediacy: primary certainty remains intact through direct experience.
• Strategy:
  • listen to statements,
  • compare with self-evidence,
  • distinguish between mediated claims and immediate experience.

4. Tradition vs. Current Experience

• Tradition: inherited structures, historical teachings
• Current experience: the direct, immediate perception of undivided Existence
• Self-evidence is independent of tradition, but can coexist without being affected.

5. Evidence vs. Perception

• Evidence: external proofs, observations, arguments
• Perception: self-evident and self-sustaining
• Evidence can support understanding, but is never necessary for primary certainty.

6. Derived Certainty vs. Primary Certainty

• Derived certainty: reasoning, analysis, tradition -- secondary
• Primary certainty: self-evident experience -- immediate
• The starting point is always primary, undivided experience.

7. When External Statements Clash

• Doubt may arise: "Could it be so?"
• If one focuses solely on the statement:
  • "Could it be so?" becomes "It must be so"
  • Risk of blind faith
• The person conveying the statement may have passed through:
  1. Belief in the statement
  2. Questioning
  3. Reconsideration
  4. Testing alternatives
  5. Concluding "It must be so"
  6. Resting on reason-based foundation

8. Risk of Sect-Like Structure

If one abandons self-evidence in favor of statements:

• risk of authoritarian leadership
• in the company of few members
• in enclosure and isolation
• in an us-and-them mindset
• with control and prohibition of criticism
• with reward and punishment
• through voluntary but not free participation

9. Difference Between Sect and Religion

• Sect = small group with above characteristics
• Religion = same structure but with many followers
• Only the number of adherents distinguishes a sect from a religion

10. Safe Navigation with the Insight of Undivided Existence

• Rest in the direct experience of all as one Existence
• Receive external statements without losing primary self-evidence
• Use evidence and tradition as tools, not foundations
• Prevent doubt or external insistence from converting "could it be so" into "it must be so"
• Maintain the insight that all apparent parts are manifestations within the undivided whole

11. Overall Conclusion

• The self-evident experience of undivided Existence is always the starting point.
• Evidence, tradition, and mediation can strengthen, illustrate, or challenge but never replace primary certainty.
• The risk of sect-like structure arises only when primary self-evidence is abandoned in favor of blind trust in mediated statements.
• Sudden insight that "all is one" reinforces self-evidence, and when properly held, prevents misinterpretation or dependency on external authority.