Excerpt from Steps in Raja Yoga

Experience is the only teacher.   Without Self-experience

we may talk through life and still have no enlightenment.

  We cannot get direct perception of Truth merely by discussion

and by consideration of the experience of others. 

It is said, “A dog walking through a field of cotton

does not come out dressed in a suit of clothes.” 

We ourselves must experience the superconscious state.

Others’ experience will no doubt be of assistance since

it creates in us self-confidence, which enables us

to practice more vigorously, but their experience

cannot manifest in us the Truth.

  For that reason each of us must do his own practice. 

From The Textbook of Yoga Psychology

by Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati