Only God knows

A simple, yet thought-provoking fable...

Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before – such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.

People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. “This horse is not a horse to me,” he would tell them. “It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend.” The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in his stable. All the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been to high. Now the horse is gone and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”

The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?”

The people contested, “Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.”

The old man spoke again. “All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?”

The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn’t, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, and old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.

After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again, the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. “Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”

The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of one phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase?”

“Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is one fragment! Don’t say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.”

“Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned. With a little work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.

The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments.

“You were right,” they said. “You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken both his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.”

The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”

It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.

“You were right, old man,” They wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”

The old man spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows. Say only this. Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”

Scientology news

The religion faces being banned in France - read more about that here.

Independent investigation

I have blogged on this topic several times in the past - and yet, I believe there is so much more to dig out here. So here's a question, for you, readers, to ponder and respond to:

How does one balance the fundamental principle of independent, rational, scientific investigation of the truth (which requires one to question, doubt, seek to understand and not blindly accept) with the hard reality of an imperfect mind burdened with an imperfect understanding of rationality, preconceived notions, prejudices, cultural/social conditioning and an ego?

Put differently, as I investigate reality and try to get closer to truth, can I ever be sure that something I reject as being false is really false? For it could just be that my understanding is limited, and I'm not mature/intelligent enough to understand that it really is true...

The simple answer to this, of course, is that we try our best. Can we try and dig a little deeper into this, though? :)

Puzzling parable

Can anyone explain this parable?

¹And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.

²And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.

³Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.

⁴I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.

⁵So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?

⁶And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.

⁷Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.

⁸And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

⁹And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

¹⁰He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

¹¹If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true rich

-- Luke 16:1-11

Faith

"By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds."

-- Abdu'l Baha

This was one of the quotes which, as C put it, "rocked my world" when I first heard it. Too often do we talk about faith as something opposed to knowledge and science, as something involving blind trust in something one can never prove, and as the pastime of irrational, illogical people. This quote, on the other hand, presents a very different concept of faith, my understanding of which I will try and elaborate on here.

The way I have, over time, come to understand faith, is as a very scientific process of discovery, which is what I believe the first part of the quote alludes to when it talks about conscious knowledge - faith is not just the knowledge one has, but that part of knowledge that one is conscious, aware of. Now how does one go about acquiring this knowledge? It is through a process based on the scientific method of experimentation and hypothesis testing. There is one key difference though - all of science today is based on studying some object external to you using certain physical instruments. Even psychologists who study the human brain or surgeons who study the human body study some human being other than themselves, or some part of themselves that is treated as an object. Therefore there is always a separation between the subject and the object of experimentation, however subtle. In addition, the instruments of experimentation are usually physical, tangible objects that produce physical, tangible results. An exception to this is of course a field like, say, psychoanalysis or anthropological research, where the instruments of experimentation are often more intangible tools. But these too usually involve an external object that is being studied. Both the objectification of that which is being studied, and the physical nature of instruments mean that all these experiments that we conduct on the world have what we like to call objective results - results that do not depend on our opinions/beliefs, but rather results that can be reproduced by anyone who had access to the same object and the same instruments. This notion of verifiability is a key requirement today to be considered legitimate science.

A scientific approach to metaphysical questions, on the other hand, is intrinsically different in that it breaks both of the above norms - the object of study is not something extrinsic to us (or even some part of us that we can study as something extrinsic to our "self"), but rather our own soul - or whatever it is in us that we refer to when we say "I". In addition, the instruments of experimentation are not physical objects, but rather, our actions in this world. We make a hypothesis about the spiritual nature of the world/ourself, act on the basis of that hypothesis, and then make measurements by looking at the consequences of those actions. If the consequences align with the original hypothesis, one puts a certain measure of faith in it. This process of course does not stop with one such instance - one constantly keeps up this process of experimentation and validation, and over time, one builds up a reasonable level of faith in one's hypothesis.

Lets take a concrete example of this. Suppose someone comes to me one day and says I should pray everyday, for that has spiritual influence on the world and my soul. If I accepted him at face value and just did what he suggested, that would surely be blind faith. But instead, lets say I take what he says as a working hypothesis. Then I act on the basis of that, sincerely, and with an open mind, not being attached to my own views on the matter. So I pray sincerely everyday for a while, and then observe the effect this has on my soul, my state of mind, my actions in the world, and my effect on the people around me. If I find that there is a distinct positive change in all these over time, I will, through this scientific process, end up concluding that prayer does indeed have some spiritual effect. Of course, I don't immediately stop at this point and then blindly accept this as a truth proven beyond question. I have greater faith in it, and so act with increased vigor - but still keep my mind open to being proven wrong if there is enough compelling evidence to show that I was mistaken the first time around. As the evidence in favor of the hypothesis mounts, however, so does my faith in its truth value. This is an asymptotic process.

(Note that all this depends on one being completely open-minded, without prejudice, and without preconcieved notions of the results of the experiment - in other words, we need to cleanse the instrument of our soul so we can have confidence in the final consequences being the result of the action itself and not our own failings/biases. The following two quotes from Abdu'l Baha emphasize exactly this point.

"The perfect love needs an unselfish instrument, absolutely freed from fetters of every kind."

"The most important thing is to polish the mirrors of hearts in order that they may become illumined and receptive of the divine light. One heart may possess the capacity of the polished mirror; another be covered and obscured by the dust and dross of this world. Although the same Sun is shining upon both, in the mirror which is polished, pure and sanctified you may behold the Sun in all its fullness, glory and power revealing its majesty and effulgence, but in the mirror which is rusted and obscured there is no capacity for reflection although so far as the Sun itself is concerned it is shining thereon and is neither lessened nor deprived."

Therefore the building up of faith in a spiritual reality should ideally come about as a result of this development of conscious knowledge that is based on this process of scientific experimentation on the soul. And the experimental process involves our deeds, the actions we use to test our hypothesis about the spiritual world - and this brings in the second part of the quote, the practice of good deeds. Faith, therefore is knowledge that one is aware of, and which is built up through the exercise of one's free will to commit good deeds.

Another (and I believe equally valid) interpretation of the second part of the quote is also that faith cannot exist in thought alone - one can only be said to have true faith when one acts and performs good deeds on the basis of that faith. It is not enough for me to say that I believe in God and the spiritual nature of the human soul - I need to act on the basis of that belief, serve humanity, do good deeds - and only then can I be said to have faith. Therefore conscious knowledge, and action on the basis of that knowledge together comprise true faith.

One most striking aspect of this process, of course, is its subjective nature. If I say that prayer has spiritual effect on my soul, is there any way to objectively verify this? This inherent subjectivity is often used as a reason to rubbish any kind of spiritual statement as being scientifically unsound due to its non-verifiability from a completely objective standpoint. But is this really true? Or does this arise from the fundamental impossibility of recreating the exact conditions of experimentation to verify these statements? All scientific experimenters will agree that objective verifiability only makes sense when the conditions of experimentation are exactly the same - so if someone claims that he conducted an experiment where he measured the boiling point of water to be 100 degrees, I would need to recreate the same conditions (ensure I'm heating pure water, for example, and not contaminated water) to get the same result. If i boiled water with salt in it instead of pure water and determined that the boiling point was 105 degrees, I cannot conclude that the first claim was wrong. If we now apply this same analogy to scientific experimentation on the self, one immediately realizes that one can never recreate the same conditions of the soul in another human being, for each person is a complex combination of myriad thoughts, experiences, circumstances etc. And so one should in fact expect that a scientific experiment conducted by one person on his soul would not be exactly reproducible by another. This is no way means that the original experiment and conclusions are wrong.

Does this then lead to complete relativism, a complete lack of objectivity? In a static sense it might seem so, but dynamically I don't think so. Though initially it might seem like our experimental process is doomed to failure because there is no way to distinguish between true consequences of any action, and consequences because of our lack of understanding/sincerity/openness, over time as our understanding develops, so will our ability to discern truth. Therefore with time, as we hone the instrument of our soul and polish our mirrors within, we will be able to better reflect the light of knowledge that shines on us all. And this will eventually lead us, asymptotically, towards understanding, objectively, the true nature of reality and all that underlies it.

The essence of faith

In this, the month of trust, let us reflect on these words below to understand what faith/trust in God really means.

"The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds..."

-- Baha'u'llah

⁴⁷ Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:

⁴⁸ He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.

⁴⁹ But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

-- Luke 6:47-49

"By faith is meant, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds."

-- Abdu'l Baha

Watch...

³¹ Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

³² But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

³³ Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.

³⁴ For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

³⁵ Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:

³⁶ Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.

³⁷ And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.

-- Mark 13:31-37

Quote of the week

O Son of Spirit!

I created thee rich, why dost thou bring thyself down to poverty? Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself? Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I molded thee, how dost thou busy thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.

-- Baha'u'llah, Hidden Words

The big religion comparison chart

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The irony of ritualism and dogma

And he (Jesus) said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.

-- Mark:2-27

For legal standards, political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.

-- Shoghi Effendi

You, only you....

Yet another Kabir gem that points to the underlying unity between the individual and God and creation; where we are both the giver and the taker, the thief and the cop, the infant and the mother - so let one man not exalt himself over another, for in everything you see you, only you. (or another interpretation that in everything you see God, only God).

इनका भेद बता मेरे अवधू, अच्छी करनी कर ले तू
डाली फूल जगत के माही, जहाँ देखूं वहां तू का तू

हाथी में हाथी बन बैठा चींटी में है छोटो तू
होय महावत ऊपर बैठे, हाँकन वाला तू का तू

चोरों के संग चोर बन जावे, डाकूओं में भेलो तू
चोरी कर के तू भाग जावे, पकड़ने वाला तू का तू

दाता के संग दाता बन जावे, भिखारी में भेलो तू
मंगतो हो कर मांगन लगे, देने वाला तू का तो

नर नारी में एक बिराजे, दो दुनिया में दीसे क्यों
बालक हो कर रोवन लगे, राखन वाला तू का तू

जल थल जीव में तू ही विराजे, जहाँ देखूं वहां तू का तू
कहे कबीर सुनो भाई साधो, गुरु मिल्या है ज्यूँ का त्यूं

Rough translation:

Hey my wise one! What's the secret?
Just do good work.
In this world flowers, branches—
wherever I look,
you, only you.

An elephant is you in elephant form,
an ant is just a little you.
As an elephant driver you sit on top.
The one saying “Go!” is you, only you.

With thieves you become a thief,
you’re among the outlaws.
You rob somebody and run.
The cop who nabs the thief is you, only you.

With givers you become a giver.
You’re among the paupers too.
As a beggar you go begging.
The donor is you, only you.

In man and woman you shine the same,
Who in this world would call them two?
A baby arrives and starts to cry.
The one who holds it is you, only you.

In earth and ocean, every creature, you shine forth, you alone.
Wherever I look, it's only you.
Kabir says, listen seekers,
You’ve found the guru right here!