Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Doubt and Faith: Resolving the Debate Between Science and Religion

Transcript

Doubt and Faith: Resolving the Debate Between Science and Religion · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  There has been a long standing debate between religion and
• 0:05
  science centered around the question of faith versus the
• 0:10
  search for truth through the use of the mind and its powers.
• 0:14
  This raises several questions, however, about the type and
• 0:18
  nature of the faith and the type and nature of the mental action.
• 0:24
  There is no necessary or irreconcilable division between
• 0:28
  them, but we need to understand the situation more in depth to
• 0:33
  find the point where they coexist and actually support one
• 0:37
  another. It is clear that the mind and
• 0:40
  the mental process has its specific powers and its clear
• 0:44
  limitations. The mind is most competent in
• 0:48
  terms of its ability to distinguish differences,
• 0:51
  organize and categorize them, and analyze.
• 0:56
  It is less effective when looking for overarching
• 0:59
  principles were first causes. Even when it tries to develop
• 1:04
  some kind of principle, this is generally based on experience
• 1:09
  and data it has developed to date, and then this principle
• 1:14
  becomes outdated when new facts become available.
• 1:18
  Thus, the world was flat until it was round.
• 1:22
  The sun revolved around the earth until the earth rotated
• 1:27
  and revolved around the sun. The observations of the senses
• 1:32
  and the determinations by the mind were based on incomplete
• 1:36
  facts, and thus inaccurate principles were reduced.
• 1:41
  There are things the mind does very well, but determining first
• 1:45
  causes is certainly not one of them.
• 1:50
  We turn then to the process of faith.
• 1:53
  In this case we find that faith can either be driven by the mind
• 1:57
  and the vital nature whereby it adopts a teaching, a dogma, or a
• 2:02
  specific movement or process that satisfies a need of the
• 2:06
  mind for certainty and the vital nature for inclusion and
• 2:09
  acceptance. The books are written by men who
• 2:13
  are interpreting events with their minds and then turning
• 2:16
  these things into articles of faith.
• 2:20
  We then find dogmatic interpretations and attempts to
• 2:23
  proselytize and convert others because this is the one true
• 2:29
  faith. Wars have been fought over these
• 2:32
  different interpretations and many people have been tortured
• 2:36
  as a result of this type of faith.
• 2:39
  True faith actually stems from a different part of the being
• 2:43
  which Sriorobindo and the Mother called a psychic being, the seat
• 2:48
  of the true soul. The Upanishads refer to this
• 2:51
  true being as no larger than a thumb and seated in the secret
• 2:55
  heart. It is the source of the Mystic
• 2:58
  fire. When it comes forward, it brings
• 3:01
  with it a deeper and truer understanding and a burning
• 3:06
  flame of faith that is not troubled by different
• 3:09
  interpretations, different scriptures, different ritual
• 3:12
  practices, different emphasis that the mind may have to offer.
• 3:18
  And it is not at all troubled by the development of the mind and
• 3:22
  the growth of its knowledge. This faith is not a matter of
• 3:26
  dogma, but a matter of experience, which is in truth
• 3:31
  the experience of the Oneness of the entire creation.
• 3:35
  It is this faith that actually can intuit and understand deeply
• 3:40
  inwardly the principles and 1st causes without turning them into
• 3:45
  weapons of debate with others. This faith has no doubts as it
• 3:51
  is rooted in a deep and abiding experience that is self-evident.
• 3:56
  It is this faith that needs to be harbored and protected as it
• 4:00
  grows in the being. This leads then to the personal
• 4:04
  effort needed. The attention must be tuned to
• 4:08
  the psychic being which is called aspiration.
• 4:13
  The distractions need to be minimized and removed.
• 4:16
  This is called rejection. In scientific terminology, we
• 4:21
  can say that we need to tune to the signal and reduce the noise
• 4:26
  to strengthen the reception of the signal.
• 4:29
  The third step is called surrender, and this is
• 4:32
  essentially accepting and responding to the signal without
• 4:37
  all the distractions, in other words, locking in the signal
• 4:42
  without deviation. The mother notes quote.
• 4:47
  Some people think it is a very great mental elegance to play
• 4:51
  with ideas, to discuss them, to contradict their faith.
• 4:56
  They think that this gives them a very superior attitude, that
• 5:00
  in this way they are above superstitions and ignorance.
• 5:04
  But if you listen to suggestions of doubt and skepticism, then
• 5:09
  you fall into the grossest ignorance and stray away from
• 5:12
  the right path. You enter into confusion, error,
• 5:18
  a maze of contradictions. You are not always sure you will
• 5:22
  be able to get out of it. You go so far away from the
• 5:26
  inner truth that you lose sight of it and sometimes lose to to
• 5:33
  all possible contact with your soul.
• 5:37
  Certainly a personal effort is needed to preserve one's faith,
• 5:42
  to let it grow within. Later, much later, one day,
• 5:48
  looking back, we may see that everything that happened, even
• 5:52
  what seemed to us the worst, was a divine grace to make us
• 5:56
  advance on the way. And then we become aware that
• 6:00
  the personal effort too was a grace.
• 6:04
  But before reaching that, .1 has to advance much, to struggle
• 6:09
  much, sometimes even to suffer a great deal.
• 6:14
  To sit down in inert passivity and say, if I am to have faith I
• 6:19
  shall have it, the Divine will give it to me, is an attitude of
• 6:23
  laziness, of unconsciousness, and almost of bad will.
• 6:29
  For the inner flame to burn, one must feed it.
• 6:32
  One must watch over the fire, throw into it the fuel of all
• 6:36
  the errors one wants to get rid of.
• 6:39
  All that delays the progress, all that darkens the path.
• 6:44
  If one doesn't feed the fire, it smoulders under the ashes of
• 6:48
  one's unconsciousness and inertia.
• 6:51
  And then not years, but lives, centuries will pass before 1
• 6:57
  reaches the goal. One must watch over one's faith
• 7:02
  as one watches over the birth of something infinitely precious
• 7:07
  and protected very carefully from everything that can impair
• 7:10
  it in the ignorance and darkness of the beginning.
• 7:15
  Faith is the most direct expression of the divine power
• 7:19
  which comes to fight and conquer.
• 7:23
  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo and the
• 7:27
  Mother Powers Within, Chapter 6, Faith, pages 63 to 64.