Why a direct experience of self-realisation?

Why should self-realisation be experienced and not just understood?

Here's one perspective [1]:

A new moon in the sky may be hard to see. But someone who has seen it himself can say to those who haven’t, ‘Look, there is a crow sitting on the branch of that tree. Look where my finger is pointing. Behind the head of the crow you can see the moon.’

If you follow the advice you will see the moon, but if you keep your attention on the pointing finger or the crow or the branch of the tree, you will miss the point of the directions that are being given to you.

The books that have been left by the founders of various religions and the teachers who expound on them are the fingers that point. People end up focussing on these fingers and not following the line of sight to see what they are pointing at.

No book, no person, no word reveals the truth. You have to look and see it for yourself. It has to be your own experience, not something you have picked up from someone else.

(In the same book, two experiences are described. One was at the age of six! Another was twenty-five years later.

Understanding self-realisation is difficult precisely because it is not anything new which springs into existence. Papaji, e.g., found no difference in the two experiences, but still continued with his japa until experiences of the Divine as another entity outside him ended naturally.)

Another, simpler, perspective. Babuji (and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa) advised: taste the mango, don't just talk about it!

NOTES

[1] Godman, David. 1998. (Kindle ed.) Nothing Ever Happened - Papaji Biography, vol.I. Chapter: Ramana Maharshi. Question on experience at age of six.