awakening to the truth

My philosophy in life is"To experience is to know" .We only know that which we have experienced either through observation i.e witnessing or personally going through the actual experience.This has not always been my way of understanding life but experience has taught me so.Take for example you observe how people behave when drunk but you will not really know what it is like to be drunk.You can carry a bottle of honey even read about it but you only get to know what it really is when you taste it.No matter how much you read
about sex you can only know what it really is through having intercourse.If i asked you to explain what a rainbow is to a blind man what would you say it is? or better yet define what light is to a blind person in a lay man's language? But light is so real,you experience it everyday,you see it you know its real but exactly what is it? You can only understand it if you experience it. There is experience by observing you witness how a certain disease affect people you may not actually get sick but you have witnessed so you know about it not from reading or hearsay .  We are informed about a lot of things but not all the information is true knowledge.It becomes true knowledge through experience.As children we are taught about God being the creator of the universe, heaven and hell,the devil,and many other things.Only a few brave souls question or dig deeper into the truth of this information.I can hear some of you already arguing how can one experience God? I was brought up a christian and i have nothing against Christianity or any other religion.However as i dug deeper i realized religion is one area where we are well informed but we actually do not have true knowledge because we rarely question religion.Many Christians are believers not knowers.I talk of Christianity because that is the religion that raised me i must emphasize i have nothing against it.There are many things in this life we claim to know but we know not.We at times judge people and situations because having not experienced what others are going through then we have no idea what they feel or their perception. Someone who have found themselves in such a situation have the experience and hence may have better understanding and even compassion.This realization has helped me to forgive people and even to be non judgmental. It has helped me learn how to let people be.How to be an observer rather than a judge of situations and events. I bear in mind that i do not know what i have not experienced. So what do you claim to know and do you really know?