Picking and choosing

In recent discussions with W, he brought out the no-doubt common paradigm of picking and choosing that which he thought was right from different religious schools of thought. I myself have been a proponent of this way of forming a consistent philosophy to live life by in the past. The basic idea is this - with so much junk in the teachings of each religion today, and with much that seems not to make sense, a lot of us resort to picking and choosing what we find most appealing in each set of teachings, that which makes sense to us - and putting together this jumble of pieces, come up with our own private worldview.

I've probably already given away my opinion on this method of living life in the preceding paragraph, but lets go deeper into it - why would something like this not really work? As I said, at some point I used to believe in exactly the same thing. Lets look at some of the reasons why I've changed my mind about this one.

1. The process makes the implicit assumption that it is possible to come to an understanding about truth entirely through one's own faculties, which I don't think is true as we're all imperfect. I believe that some level of revelation is fundamentally necessary to advance our understanding of the world. We can all of course form our own philosophies - but seems highly unlikely that as we keep subjectively picking and choosing, we'll all come to an understanding of truth. Abdu'l Baha says:

"God has sent forth the Prophets for the purpose of quickening the soul of man into higher and divine recognitions. He has revealed the heavenly Books for this great purpose. For this the breaths of the Holy Spirit have been wafted through the gardens of human hearts, the doors of the divine Kingdom opened to mankind and the invisible inspirations sent forth from on high. This divine and ideal power has been bestowed upon man in order that he may purify himself from the imperfections of nature and uplift his soul to the realm of might and power. God has purposed that the darkness of the world of nature shall be dispelled and the imperfect attributes of the natal self be effaced in the effulgent reflection of the Sun of Truth. "

and

"If the world of nature were perfect and complete in itself, there would be no need of such training and cultivation in the human world—no need of teachers, schools and universities, arts and crafts. The revelations of the Prophets of God would not have been necessary, and the heavenly Books would have been superfluous. If the world of nature were perfect and sufficient for mankind, we would have no need of God and our belief in Him. Therefore, the bestowal of all these great helps and accessories to the attainment of divine life is because the world of nature is incomplete and imperfect. "

I think it is fairly obvious when we look around us, and see our lives, that we are riddled with imperfections - and so to assume that relying purely on our own strengths will help us get to the truth seems a little unreasonable to me.

2. Ok, maybe picking and choosing won't get us to absolute truth, as we are imperfect. But many might argue that it is still the best we can do in today's circumstances, for there is no one set of teachings that gives us all the right answers anyway. This argument therefore assumes that nobody so far, in all of history, has known truth or understood reality - and everyone so far has only had an imperfect understanding of it. And so the best we can do is pick and choose amongst all those imperfect understandings.

Now this is an argument that people often make without any substantiation. I think its entirely possible to think of a world in which this argument would be true. But we clearly have a situation where several people, through history, have claimed to have some kind of divine connection with truth, with the natural order of things. So as someone seeking to find the truth, our responsibility is to determine whether these claims could possibly have been true. And this I need to do by studying the lives of these people, their teachings, their actions, the effects of their teachings on the people around them, on people through history, the effects of their principles on me and my life when I apply them to my actions - and after doing all this, if I come to the conclusion that no, these people were not who they claimed to be, that they were very wise and intelligent, but nevertheless didn't totally understand things - then, and then alone, can one claim that the best one can do in this world is pick and choose. My own belief, based on the little I've read and understood, is that these people were who they claimed to be - and so I think we can do better than just picking and choosing.

3. Related to the above two - to understand anything, one needs to be able to be greater than it. Comprehension involves encompassing. And so animals can understand plants in a way in which plants cannot ever hope to understand animals. Humans can understand animals and nature in a way in which they cannot comprehend him. It is like humans stand above nature, on a mountain, and look down at it, thereby understanding it in its entirety. This is borne out by how in the physical sciences, we can usually make very categorical statements about the nature of the physical world - for we subsume it.

On the contrary, when it comes to the human sciences, sociology, and understanding human society, one seldom sees things that can be understood entirely, that are cut-and-dried. And this is basically because we are all immersed in that which we seek to understand. Its like this sea of humanity, and each person in that sea is trying to understand the complete picture. And some people are taller, and can see a little further than others - but no one is high enough to see the entire picture. The manifestation, on the other hand, is claimed to exist on a higher plane - and so can comprehend the nature of the spiritual world much in the same way that we stand above material reality and can comprehend it.

Abdu'l Baha says:

"The power of the understanding differs in degree in the various kingdoms of creation. The mineral, vegetable, and animal realms are each incapable of understanding any creation beyond their own. The mineral cannot imagine the growing power of the plant. The tree cannot understand the power of movement in the animal, neither can it comprehend what it would mean to possess sight, hearing or the sense of smell. These all belong to the physical creation.
Man also shares in this creation; but it is not possible for either of the lower kingdoms to understand that which takes place in the mind of man... All superior kingdoms are incomprehensible to the inferior; how therefore could it be possible that the creature, man, should understand the almighty Creator of all?"

4. The fourth thing to consider is a hypothetical question - assuming there is an underlying spiritual reality to this world, that there is some eternal spiritual existence, and that there are some truths about the world we don't naturally understand - assuming that is the case, is it likely that "God" would have left us to just fend for ourselves, without guidance, without support? Maybe - but that would just be too unfair a world. And somehow I think we'd be given a better chance. Of course, this might just be my own sentimental judgment - but its definitely a question to ask oneself.

5. This reason relates to our personal growth. When picking and choosing, it is more than likely that we'll end up picking things that appeal to us, and discarding those that don't. The truth, and reality, however, are greater than anything you or I like or believe - if something is true, however hard it is for me to accept, it still remains true. The process of picking and choosing does not in any way challenge us to realize our own limitations, veils, and barriers. And so if there were some aspects of truth that went contrary to our own instinctual leanings, we would never grasp it, for we would always discard it in our vetting process, as not appealing to our reason or understanding.

6. Last, if we all pick and choose, how would we ever come to a common understanding of truth? Each of us has different predilections - and so we'd all pick that which made sense to us. How then do we ever dialogue, interact with each other, find a common platform to live on the basis of?

Of course, it is important to note that all the above specifically refers to the act of picking and choosing principles one likes - not the broader notion of subjecting any school of thought to rigorous scientific examination. But one always needs to accept that one's own faculties of reason are imperfect and limited - and so relying just on them would be unwise.