A key tenet of the scientific method is to maintain rigorous skepticism, allowing data to lead assessment. Otherwise cognitive biases too easily blot interpretation. I’m reminded of a university professor who half-jokingly taught us to draw lines first and then plot the points. While pretty graphs they made, little inductive reasoning followed.
The greatest discoveries rarely come from preconceived expectations. The outlying data that lead a researcher to say, "Hmm … that’s interesting," are often most fruitful for further analysis.
Which leads us to the topic of faith. While few scientists would ascribe faith to experimental outcomes, they most definitely have faith in the reasoned methods of logical conjecturing. Not a mystical belief in unseen forces but rather an inner knowing that objective analysis coupled with critical thinking leads to constructive insight.
Within such a formalized structure for knowledge, how might we approach topics of a spiritual nature where empirical data may be fuzzy, at best? In such a realm, faith might seem to light the only path forward. But the wisest teachers of non-dualistic philosophies convincingly counsel that no such faith is required.
In which case, short of a matrix-intuiting red pill, how might we determine whether a particular spiritual path is worth pursuing? By one measure only: how well it works for you. As subjective measures of meaning meet with the objective certainties of experience, then will you know. Its practices will guide you to peace, or they won’t. No faith required.
A Course in Miracles points out in the introduction to its exercises:
Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.
Of course, there is nothing wrong bringing a measure of faith into one’s doctrine. But neither belief nor benediction will set us truly free. Repeated practices that progress us on the path most definitely will.
Join me in Thursday’s class where we’ll explore the nature of faith as well as techniques to help us advance on our awakening journey. I look forward to seeing you then.