Dinner with W and J today was quite enjoyable, and provided a suitable atmosphere, as usual, for some enlivening discussions. Amongst the things we talked about was one of W's recurring questions - phrased in different ways, but which essentially boils down to this - Why should one believe in a claim that is impossible, in theory, to verify scientifically? How can one bring oneself to accept something that one cannot prove with absolute certainty?
This question is a very pertinent one when it comes to spiritual claims made by teachers over the ages who claimed to be Prophets/Manifestations of God. Firstly, even the concept of God is unverifiable - often just by definition. Then there come questions of the human soul, its nature that is beyond this material world, and so by definition impossible to sense through our material scientific apparatus; claims about life after death; and so on. Why should we believe these claims?
I pondered this question while biking home - is there a clear answer to this, beyond just saying that it comes down to one's personal experiences? Hmm, maybe. As i mused over this, I created the following story which possibly illustrates one reason why an attitude that refuses to accept anything not verifiable in theory, might not always lead to truth. Along the course of the story, I indicate metaphors for spiritual entities/concepts in italics within parentheses. Obviously, like all analogies, it is intended to illustrate a specific point, and should not be carried too far by the reader.
Imagine a community of people that live on a desert island. Till as far back as their society existed, they have had no contact with any other human civilization in the world. Their community has evolved much the same as the rest of humanity except for one key difference - they have no eyes (spiritual sight). Their entire existence is based on sensing the world through 4 senses - touch, hearing, taste and smell.
One day a foreigner (Prophet/Manifestation) lands on their shores from some distant land. As he walks to the nearest town, he meets some people and is surprised to find they are all blind. As he walks on, he meets more and more people, and realizes that not only is every single person on this island blind, they have no concept of sight itself. Struck by how much they are missing, he gathers a group of people around him, and starts telling them about the sense of seeing. He tells them about the sun (God), which is source of all the light (The Holy Spirit/spiritual energy) in the world. This light enables us to see the world, and understand qualities of living entities such as color (the soul). In fact, though nobody there can see the sun, it is the source of all life on that island, and without it nothing would exist there.
But the people gathered around him have no idea what he is talking about. "What is this sun you speak of?", they ask. "We cannot hear it, nor can we feel it, nor taste it, nor smell it. Therefore it cannot exist. How can we believe that this entity you claim exists, which we cannot sense in any way, is actually the source of all life on this island? And what do you mean by color? Do you mean to say that we all have this quality called color, which we have no way to sense? I can feel my skin, feel its texture, smell it, taste it, hear the sound my finger makes when i rub against it - but you say it also has a color? I cannot believe any of this!" Saying so, they all decide the foreigner is mad and dangerous, and kill him.
The above story, with some minor variations, could well be the story of any of the spiritual teachers who have come down to earth to teach us about the existence of a spiritual reality that goes beyond the material world as we can sense it. Clearly the foreigner who came to the island knew more about reality - and yet there was no way for the people on that island to realize that with certainty.
Now how could they have understood him better? What they should have done was to question him - ask him about the world as they knew it. If they did, they would have found that he had just as good a command over the other senses they were familiar with - maybe even better. And he could tell them everything about the world as they knew it - and more. And this would help build some trust in them. Then they could interact with him on a regular basis, observe how he lived his life, how he interacted with other people - and all this would help them, over time, build more and more trust in his words, as they saw how it all consistently fit together. And then eventually they would reach a stage where they trusted him enough to accept that they could not understand sight not because the concept didn't exist, but because of their own imperfections. And as they grew more sensitive and open to this, they would become aware of other evidences in the world for what the foreigner claimed, the heat of the sun's rays on their hands, the coolness at night, the correlation between that and climate in a part of the island etc - and they would find it all fitting in with the foreigner's claims about reality.
The process of spiritual acceptance, I think, is pretty similar. We are encouraged to never accept anything blindly, but question it. But the questioning must always be done with the attitude of learning, not with the attitude of trying to prove something wrong. And then it requires a lot of sustained effort over time, studying the writings of these teachers to see how it all fits together, looking at the effects of these teachings on people who follow them. And finally it requires us to relate it back to our own lives, see how it fits in with what we can perceive of reality, and see how it can help us better understand our own lives, and how we should think and act. As we continue doing this over time, and find more and more things that make sense, it helps us be more trusting and believing, and helps us accept those things that maybe we cannot prove for certain.
It all comes back, as Hamid once said, to the fact that spiritual growth is a dynamic process and not static - and so by focusing on that which we do understand (not on what we don't) and applying it to our lives , and by constant effort through prayer and studying, we will automatically understand more over time. For action begets greater wisdom, which in turn motivates more action, and so on.
Would love to hear more thoughts on this...
God Hates Figs
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A blog I encountered argued that God hates certain groups of people, and
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This is true, that just because we cannot right now see, does not mean that we will not someday be able to see, or that others have not been able to see.
However, one question arises: often the spritiual texts differ in the exact details of God: dvaita versus advaita, a single supreme power versus intangible forces and so on.
In such a scenario, if one applies the methodology you prescribe towards finding a path, each person will likely develop his own different path (as is currently the case).
So what you prescribe does seem to me as a very practical "believe what suits you best".
In terms of our lives on earth, no harm comes of it, since most spiritual texts also prescribe a humanist way of life. However, in terms of our spiritual growth, I'm not sure how much closer we come to the "truth".
Also, just as we must approach the hypothesis that there is god with a spirit of learning, we must also approach the hypothesis that perhaps there isn't any deeper meaning with a similar spirit of learning.
One may argue that the second hypothesis, if true, would lead to a spirit of disrespect and disregard amongst human beings. But fortunately we are irrational beings with often unexplainable reactions and emotions. And so even taking this second hypothesis into account, one could hope for a humanist way of life.
I sort of agree with what you said - except this is not the complete picture, right? Our entire approach needs to be scientific. So first if there exist differences between different teachings that have been given at different times, we should attempt to understand why - often these things can be explained historically (such as the difference between advaita and dvaita), and in other cases the differences are due to our inability to understand a reality that is vastly more multidimensional than us. As a simple example - if you take a cylinder and look at it from just 1 side, it looks like a rectangle; and if you look at it just from the top it looks like a circle. Both those pictures have some truth to them when it comes to the reality of the cylinder - but neither is a complete picture. A lot of seeming discrepancies between specific details given by religion come down to something like this. Humanity evolves and is capable of only grasping some dimensions of reality at any given time - so only that portion is given to us. The mistake we make is in assuming that we have a complete picture, which is static and will never change.
so of course if, as happens now, we all stick to 1 static picture we will end up developing our own paths. And to the extent that our path reflects the true path, we benefit. but that's not sufficient.
what i suggested is not at all believe what suits you best - rather it is believing that which best fits our scientific observations about the world, history, science etc. so it is necessary to be detached and objective, not just pick what you like (which is wht we often do, and i have a post about this here - http://spiritualgleanings.blogspot.com/2008/09/picking-and-choosing.html).
also important is learning from other people, interacting with them. if i just do my own thing, its likely i'll just stick to 1 path. but if i interact with 10 different people and see them following 10 different paths and each benefiting from it, i will be forced to question myself, and wonder if there is a greater path that encompasses all these. then if i study history, see how these different paths evolved and the parallels with humanity's evolution, i will be able to piece them all together into a coherent picture, and discard those aspects that are just ritualistic/unnecessary/figments of people's imaginations.
Obviously we are not all doing this by ourselves - we use the teachings of these spiritual teachers to guide us. if i tried to develop these theories on my own, its unlikely i'll get to the truth. but i start with a claim someone has made about reality, claiming he has absolute access to it - and then i try to verify his claims in many ways. And of course one might never get complete certainty - but over time one's trust increases as one finds more and more proofs, and also finds how implementing those teachings benefit one's life.
It is entirely possible to develop a totally atheistic view of the world and still be humanist - no doubt about that. to some extent what you choose to believe will be dictated by your own personal experiences. and nobody can convince u of things they believe based on their own personal experience. ultimately the proof of a pudding is in its taste :)
personally speaking, i have gone through periods of atheism. where i am right now, i find my life to be far more joyful and purposeful, i find myself a better human being, and i find i am learning a lot more. and so based on my own experiences, it appears that what i believe now closer reflects reality. and of course, in addition, there's what i've come to understand from other people, people far wiser and kinder than me, people who clearly are more in touch with the pulse of the world - and all of that seems to reinforce this.
Of course, that is just my own personal experience, which is clearly no proof for someone else. One must of course be open to all possibilities. Personally i have found little to be gained from an atheistic/materialistic view of the world, and it seems a poorer reflection of reality to me.
hmm...i like your cylinder analogy!
to understand your point of view a little better, can i ask you two more questions:
1. there are clearly many different hypotheses about god, after life etc. that (to me) seem like they could all fit our observations equally well. the practical precepts of being loving and compassionate as a means to making one's life happier and seemingly purposeful can be appended to any one of these hypotheses with equal success. so in your opinion are they all (except atheism) okay, just different sides of the same coin?
if not, which ones have you been able to rule out given our scientific observations?
2. you say that where you are right now, you find more joy and purpose. my question is: where are you right now? :) perhaps i haven't read all your posts carefully enough, but i actually don't know what exactly your beliefs are. probably i will never know what *exactly* they are since language is often insufficient in such respects. but still...could you hint as to what they are? :)
also, btw, i should clarify (just in case) that you shouldn't take my questioning to mean anything about my own "spirituality" and beliefs :)
1. agreed, that there is a common humanitarian thread that runs through all different major religions. in addition there are other striking similarities between them too, which don't necessarily have to do with humanitarianism. Examples i can think of off the top of my head include just the basic idea of a spiritual reality greater than what we can sense materially, the concept of prayer, of learning, of living less materialistic lives, the idea of fasting, the concept of the human soul, the notion of its existence being eternal etc. In fact once u start looking at the similarities, u'll be amazed how so many different religions that came about independently at different times in different parts of the world have so much in common.
Anyway, is every theory in the world just a different side of the same coin? No, i dont think so. I'm sure there are many fraudulent theories about the world. If i just stick to the major world religions, it seems to me that they all share a common spiritual essence, and in their own time, gave the spiritual message that was needed for people then. In how they exist today, they often don't reflect that because people over time have corrupted/misinterpreted/lost the true essence of these teachings. To some extent I think we can rule out some aspects of these religions as they exist today as not being relevant to truth. This includes very specific rigidly followed rituals (especially those one can find a historical/sociological basis for that is not valid today), anything that is racist/sexist, anything that is the cause of war/hatred, the requirement for some kind of clergy/priest who has a special connection to God through whom alone one can learn spirituality, the rift between science and religion etc.
Its harder to give a more specific answer here. Might be easier to examine specific things together at some point to see how one could apply these principles to them.
2. Hard to put down in a few sentences :) Much easier to talk about in person. But i'll just put down a few things that come to mind immediately.
I believe in the existence of a spiritual reality that is greater than this material world. I believe that humans are inherently spiritual beings, and that our souls have characteristics that again go beyond this material world. I believe that there is one God - not an anthropomorphic being, and not just some force either, but something greater than anything we can conceive of - that is the independently existing reality on whose existence everything in Creation is dependent (though it is not that God one day created the world as an anthropomorphic act). I believe that all of humanity is one, and the fundamental need for today is to be united. And I believe that the relationship between this one God and the one humanity is one thing called religion, which is an extremely dynamic and evolutionary relationship. As humans evolve and mature in their thinking, their understanding of the world increases, and this relationship with God changes as well. I believe that at different points in human history, there have been these people we call Prophets who are completely in tune with the nature of this world and society, and are able to provide humanity with a glimpse of this reality that is in proportion to humanity's maturity at that time. This knowledge is therefore revealed progressively as humanity evolves, and we see it as different religions - though in essence it is all part of one relationship. And finally I believe that science and religion together can give us a much more complete picture of reality than either can on its own.
Ok, that was way too much in way too few words. Rather than try to explain any of the above here, I'll leave it for a conversation.
oh no, no judgment about your own beliefs - i thoroughly appreciate the spirit in which you ask your questions! I think its great that we can question ourselves and make each other subject what we believe to rigorous examination :) Hopefully you find this process as valuable as I do. :)
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