A black-and-white dichotomy is often set up between one's heart and mind, and or between one's experiences and those of others. As usual, Indian darśanas offer a much more nuanced, practical, and commonsensical take for life.
In simple terms: having my own experiences, learning from them, and learning from the experiences of others.
The highest priority for understanding one's inner and outer world should be given to one's own direct experiences, pratyakṣa.
But since the physical sense and motor organs can change (degrade or improve with training, age, illness), sensations should not be treated as unchanging, only as rough approximations. In scientific terms, say, true to zero decimal places instead of to five places after the decimal. So 21, not 21.00089.
Also, there is a constant and immediate interaction between the mind-brain (indriyas and cortexes) and the physical organs. This increases the level of approximation. Say, accurate to the tenths than to the units level. So 20 or 30, not 23 or 39.
However, even at low specific levels, direct experience still has highest priority. It changes from the physical level inwards.
Priority is next given to the mental frameworks one generates from one's own experiences, anumāna. Please note this is very different from learning by rote or learning from teachers who grok not what they lecture about at tedious length. The technical term in the pātañjala yoga sūtras for words or concepts lacking corresponding real-world experiences is vikalpa.
Even when based on one's own experiences, mental or conceptual frameworks are even more of an approximation since they are even more subject to training (especially bad training in logic or reasoning by others), age, illness, etc.
The lowest priority, surprisingly, is given to the experiences or teachings of others, even those of Gurus or Rishis, āgama. This may puzzle traditional sādhaks, especially those on a mystical path. It need not, since the experiences of others, no matter how advanced they were, are simply maps. I must undertake the journey myself and not fruitlessly obsess over its maps.
For example, I recently found how limited and flat-out wrong Google Maps can be for trips to Indian villages. But this does not mean villagers necessarily give better directions. The best option was - directly travel to a place using Maps, ask villagers for directions, when somewhat nearby, to locate the place, drop a GPS pin in Maps upon finally reaching the place, and share the pin with others. Even then, due to circumstances like roadwork or rain and flooding on a particular day, the GPS pin and Maps may still not be enough to get someone else to that place. Especially at a specified time.
This example also shows the often complex and recursive interactions between possible ways of knowing where to go and how to reach there. Life, and even more importantly, the inward or spiritual journey, is no different. But the sāṁkhya-yoga darśana has elegantly reduced many confusing and complicated epistemologies to just three ways of valid knowing. Other darśanas strive to expand the number beyond these three strictly-necessary channels, but the additional ones can arguably be reduced to these three.
And as far as defending the intellect goes, it should be obvious by now that one's intellect is very much necessary to use any map, especially Google Maps :-) Still one's intellect and mind should primarily riff off one's own experiences, and not rely totally or blindly on the experiences or theories of others.
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