There is a tendency to interchange words like experience and realisation but Sri Aurobindo draws an emphatic difference between them.
Experience is a word that covers almost all the happenings in yoga; only when something gets settled, there it is no longer an experience but part of the siddhi; e.g. peace when it comes and goes is an experience – when it is settled and goes no more it is a siddhi. Realisation is different – it is when something for which you are aspiring becomes real to you; e.g. you have the idea of the Divine in all, but it is only an idea, a belief; when you feel or see the Divine in all, it becomes a realisation.
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It is spirituality when you begin to become aware of another consciousness than the ego and begin to live in it or under its influence more and more. It is that consciousness wide, infinite, self-existent, pure of ego etc. which is called Spirit (Self, Brahman, Divine), so this necessarily must be the meaning of spirituality. Realisation is this and all else that the experience and growth of this greater consciousness brings with it.
Sri Aurobindo
