Faith and Knowledge

April 18, 2001

Faith and Knowledge

Knowledge may be in the form of:

1. Self-experience without theorization,

2. A theory without direct experience,

3. A theory based on experiences.

Scientists will find it difficult to accept the first proposition as

“scientific” in today's world of reason, while a student of spiritual

science will find it difficult to acknowledge the second statement. We

are interested in the third category.

The accumulated experiences in various fields of human interactions

between man and man, as well as man and nature — are theorized as

science. This is made possible because of interplay of knowledge of

thousands years of evolution of human intellect.

For instance, experience of ‘lightening’ is knowledge for father that

becomes faith for the child when stories of thunderstorm and lightening

are told to him. (Faith may be defined as trust in someone else's

knowledge.) Later the child experiences ‘lightening’ for himself in his

lifetime as a self-knowledge. Theorization of this phenomenon evolves

with time and growth of intellect to account for these experiences as

natural laws. Physics, chemistry, meteorology, and various other

sciences are involved in explaining the phenomenon of ‘lightening’ and

become the modern day scientific theories, which we call logical and

rational.

The same is the case with spiritual experiences —say, samadhi. Applying

this fact to science of spirituality, we can presume that experience of

samadhi —a state of consciousness transcending the limitations of

body-mind complex —can be a matter of faith for many sadhakas. And with

due efforts under the guidance of a Teacher who tells the method, a

sadhaka would succeed to convert his/her faith into knowledge. Thus it

is necessary to become 'scientifically spiritual' so that faith in the

experience of others can be converted into the direct perceptive

knowledge for ourselves.

c s shah

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