The necessity of a spiritual reality

Today I had the most interesting discussion with Prashant (my dearest of friends), William, and JiaHua (I probably completely massacred the spelling of her name). It came at the end of a wonderful talk by Vida. Prashant and I had wanted to organize this talk and invite some of our friends - he's always marveling to me about how people don't use a resource like Vida more often than they do, and I quite see his point! I have seldom met a person who embodies the bhakti rasa more completely than Vida. She's easily one of the most inspiring people I know, and hearing her talk always fills me with a gladness and joy that few things have the ability to evoke. So we figured we should try and get some of our friends to come and listen to her. The topic chosen for the talk was "The search for truth - a Baha'i perspective". We didn't have a very large gathering, but that was fine. I won't go in much detail over what Vida said - it was, as usual enlightening and enervating at the same time. The most incredible thing about Vida is that you can so see her love for all of God's creations in every word that she utters - it is just so evident. And it makes her words all the more transformative. She spoke a little about the basic tenets of the Baha'i faith, and then went to the heart of the topic - about how it is necessary, before we embark on the quest for spiritual truth, that we open out our hearts, get rid of any pre-conceived notions or ideas, and purify our souls. About how the root cause of all the religious conflicts we have today, the apparent contradictions between different faiths is due primarily to the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the teachings of the divine teachers. About how, if we clear the haze and mist and get rid of the veils we have, we will find, beneath it all, the golden threads that run common to all the different faiths in the world. And how, all these teachings are really but different facets of the progressive revelation of truth over the ages, and how all these divine teachers and manifestations really come from the same one God. I won't go into any more details about her talk - suffice it to say that it was illuminating and inspiring.

Once most people had left, however, William raised a question that really burgeoned into the most interesting discussion. This essence of his question was this - Why do we need a spiritual reality, a Source greater than the physical, to explain the existence of these spiritual forces of love, kindness etc? Why can ethical laws not be just like physical laws - descriptive, rather than causative? Could moral codes not be just a product of human evolution - because it was necessary for society to survive and progress? I find it a very interesting question myself, because its something I've grappled with a lot myself - intuitively, instinctively, I believe there is a force greater than us, the unknowable essence that we choose to call God. But I've always found it extremely difficult, if not impossible to come up with coherent and clear arguments to defend that position from a rational standpoint, when asked the exact questions William asked. Does it then just boil down to faith? We batted the question around a lot; Prashant had a lot of useful insights to provide - as always! The discussion was really amazing - but I think one of the final conclusions we came to was almost epiphanic for me. From the human perspective, the most elegant and scientific explanation of our existence and the world around us is one that is based on a concept of God because - and I'd say only because - of the existence of these great divine spiritual teachers - Krishna, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Baha'ullah, etc. It is because these teachers have come and propelled societies forward, because they have been the perfect exemplars of spiritual qualities such as love (the attributes of God), and because they have demonstrated the ability to transform myriad human hearts like "the elixir that transforms copper to gold" that our concept of the world must include the concept of God. It is the acceptance of these divine teachers as being qualitatively different from the rest of the human race, and as being the source of the tremendous leaps made in all aspects of human life - sciences, arts, culture - that necessitates the presence of an extra-earthly spiritual reality. And once we accept them, it is the authority of their claim of the existence of God that makes it true. And thinking about it, it makes sense to me - if there actually were a logical proof of the existence of God, then there really would be no choice but to accept it. But it really requires us to see this transformative element in the teachings of the divine teachers, and see it as the source of morality in the world - and that of course is a choice we all have - accepting or not accepting.

To me, that is a very powerful statement. And very useful as well. For it means that time spent on trying to logically reason this out is time wasted. But its not blind faith either - its more empirical, and a question of fitting the best and simplest theory to one's data - the history of humanity. Evolution cannot really explain that transformative power of the Word of God. Especially on an individual level. It cannot explain why someone who's lived one way all his life can completely change just because of the divine Word. Scientific theories, I sometimes feel, tend to look at abstractions and aggregates - while ignoring the effect on the individual.

I still find it very difficult to translate thoughts to text. The mess of ideas above is clearly indicative of that.

I must say, before I end this post, that I love any discussion that involves Prashant. He has a spirit and purity that cannot but fail to inspire. And personally, it is interacting with people like him and Michelle (his wife) and Vida that really drive home to me the fact that there is indeed a deep spirituality and goodness and love underlying this world of creation.