Saturday, June 30, 2007
Reason and Faith: A Typical Tantric Relationship
I'm really happy that Derek (AYR from the previous post) has elected to respond to my last post. For one, I'm happy that he's interested in investing energy in this discussion, but I also appreciate his frankness and focus -- keeping this from becoming a "hyper-philosophized" debate. I'll admit that I sometimes tend towards the pedantic.
I'm in agreement with a lot of what Derek has to say in his most recent post. We do live in a funny place for a yogic stronghold. There is some fluff stuffed in along with the more solid yogic teachings. (To be fair here, Swami has said that he's open to review and revision of some of the aspects of the teachings here which are perhaps less verified or central to the core curriculum, and some of us are working steadily towards this end.) And it was refreshing to read his own experiences with success in some of the yogic practices which are taught at Agama. There's one issue which arises in a few different forms about which I do have a couple things to say -- it's best summarized as Derek put it:
"The danger to any individual, whether it's joe citizen or yogini sue, lies in how they are encouraged or not to use their own rational intellect."
Derek rightly points out a bit of a contradiction in the teachings here at Agama -- but also widespread in esoterica and spirituality. He notes that Swami criticized him for being too skeptical and advocates faith in the yogic system, but also has encouraged people to find things out for themselves, verify theory through experience, experiment, and generally apply the scientific method. Swami has told me as well, that my skepticism may prove a hindrance to my progress in yoga.
We can see the same sort of paradox in Buddhism: one of the "Great Fetters" of Buddhism (along with -- varyingly according to a 10-, 5-, or 6-itemed list -- anger, hatred, laziness, agitation, ignorance, etc.) is vichikitsa, or skeptical doubt. At the same time, Buddha exhorted his monks to not take anything taught to them as truth automatically, to go out and experience it for themselves. Shinzen Young, respected as one of the more "academic" Buddhist teachers, notes in a 2006 talk given in Arizona:
"[Buddha] explicitly told his students that they need not believe something merely because he (or some sacred scripture) claimed it to be so."
So how to account for this apparent contradiction? I like the Buddhist answer --
"[Vichikitsa is] doubt, skepticism, indecisiveness, or vacillation, without the wish to cure it, more like the common idea of cynicism or pessimism than open-mindedness or desire for evidence."
This, to me, hits the nail right on the head -- it's the difference between skepticism (healthy) and cynicism (pathological). It's not that doubt is bad, it's only when you start to cling to the doubting itself that you have a problem. Relating back to Agama, in my talks with Swami about this issue, he's agreed that a difference does exist here (between skepticism and cynicism), and has simply cautioned me to tread the line carefully. It's actually quite telling of Swami's support of this rational-minded inquiring approach, that his "Swami name" takes its root in "viveka", which translates as the ability to exercise discrimination!
To be fair, I see a lot of Swami-sponsored nonsense -- or I should say, a lot of very speculative assertions, often offered without a shred of reference, citation, or serious backup -- float by in the stream of lectures, essays, and discourses offered here at Agama. But I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that all the stuff that seems like bullshit, is bullshit. Derek may remember another tall, male Israeli in our class, who began completely convinced that everything about the chakras and energy and such was a crock, and about a month or two into our course, when questioned about this, he said something like "Well yeah, I feel the energy and my chakras now, I just think that [new topic] is bullshit now instead!" Along the same lines, why not extend some open-mindedness here? I won't go through the entire list of examples you put up, but for one...
"If I rigorously practice garudasana it's not gonna help me study for a test any more so than focusing my mind during a rigorous practice of padahastasana."
Well, okay, to a certain extent, you're right. If you already have the ability to focus your mind powerfully and steadily, it won't make a huge difference even if you decide to go for ice cream rather than do yoga before an exam. But if you don't, well, just below this quote Derek says he likes a particular yoga practice for ajna chakra (governing mental power) because it helps his focus. Why would trataka on ajna help focus any more than any other practice? Is it less effective than doing trataka on swadhisthana? If so, right here we have some empirical evidence implying that things that work on ajna are better for the mind than others. Now, you could say, well why should I believe garudasana has anything to do with ajna? I should think it'd be found in the same pudding he must have gone mucking about in to verify the connection between trataka and ajna -- practice. And sure, if after a good test run, there's no connection, then I think that's completely valid to say it doesn't work for you. But to dismiss it out of hand (ie. "focus is focus") when you've already got what seems to be proof to the contrary seems hasty.
As a related personal example, I find that if I do halasana before trataka, it's much easier to hold focus in trataka. Why should being in that weird upside-down pose help me to blink less while focusing afterwards? Is there any physiological or psychological or any other -ological explanation that covers this? Sherlock Holmes used to bust this one out on Waston (if you're bored with this and in the mood for Conan Doyle, original story linked here:
"When you have eliminated the possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
All I'm saying here is, I agree completely that people's instinct for reason and rational validation should never be quashed or even held in disdain by a good teacher. I do think that some people feel like this as a result of some of the attitudes which are encouraged here, which is unfortunate. I do think Swami makes a linguistic (if not pedagogical) error when he encourages people to be less skeptical. From all my talks with him, it sounds like he often means "cynical" instead (plus a little extra, see below). But it seems to be taking up an equally unstable extreme viewpoint to assume that doctrines like karma are primarily "soothing", or that levitation is a dubious possibility because no one who's "had a few rupees thrown at them" (paraphrased) has come forward to show it off yet. (For one account by a European scientist and mechanical engineer who's witnessed levitation, see The Magus of Java by Kosta Danaos. I have not witnessed levitation myself.) Who knows, really? As I said in my last post, if belief in an "unverifiable" isn't affecting your ability to live and act as a benevolent, kind, and harmonious human being, then why rail against it? We all believe in stuff we can't prove. In the case of karma, I'd say an intelligent interpretation of karma actually encourages you to be a better person. So what if you don't get (objective) proof -- one way or the other -- until you're dead or enlightened?
It's one thing to swallow everything that gets dropped on your plate. It's another thing to refuse any and all food without getting a good taste for it first. My golden mean is somewhere in the middle -- to paraphrase Derek again, do bite and chew, and smack your lips a bit to get the flavor! Then swallow only if all signals are go. I apologize for mixing my metaphors.
I put a little see below up there awhile back, where I proposed that when Swami says "skeptical" is bad, he actually means "cynical". This is true to an extent, but I also believe he's noting another important truth here, which is the power of surrender. Everyone's got examples of times when they fought with a particular lesson to be learned, only to find in the end that the fastest way to "get it" was to give up the struggle and let go into whatever it was that they were facing. I think it's a given that, could you be absolutely, 100% sure of the verity of a certain set of teachings, there'd be no question that to throw yourself fervently into their study would yield the most brilliant results. The problem of course is that you can never be 100% sure, at least with something so abstract as "enlightenment" or the status of one's soul. So this is where healthy skepticism comes in, to gradually discover for yourself which is the wheat and which is the chaff. But Swami (and any other similarly minded teacher) is absolutely right, when he says that skepticism -- even the healthy kind -- will slow you down. For some of us, it's a speed bump we're willing, even happy to take, to ensure as best we can that we're not headed for the edge of a cliff, or a brick wall. Eventually though, if you find through repeated verification a set of teachings you can really trust, then by all means, jump in -- you'll only be dragging yourself down if at that point you insist on more and more and more proof. This is the devolution from skeptic to cynic.
One more point to make, in response to this quote from Derek:
"There was a time in history when faith and dogma ruled people's lives... it was called the 'dark ages' and people were miserable with illness, poverty, and despair. Those days were supplanted by the age of reason or enlightenment."
Steven Levitt likes to make the distinction in his work between causality and correlation -- just because two things are going on at the same time, doesn't imply that one causes the other. In this case, I don't think that a life governed by faith is causal to misery, any more than a life governed by reason is causal to happiness or comfort. It's pretty obvious that illness, poverty, and despair were and are still rampant since the onset of the Age of Enlightenement. To be sure, modern medicine and technology has created more opportunity to live well, but that's just one side of the story.
I notice on Derek's site that the "Bi-partisan Reading List" includes both Ken Wilber and David Deida. Both of these authors stress that as you move from one stage of growth to another, in the most integral way of progress it's vital not to dissociate yourself from the positive characteristics of whatever you've outgrown. Just as much as I think reason and science has its place in the healthy pursuit of spirituality, so I think faith and surrender are equally and absolutely essential.
Speaking of Wilber, he has one book titled The Marriage of Sense and Soul (really an excerpt from a much larger work) which addresses this exact issue eloquently. The basic idea is that faith and reason don't have to be mutually exclusive. I wholeheartedly embrace this idea, as I think is also the essential message at Agama. Just like Agama pushes a "yang" lifestyle because most people are (supposedly) too "yin", but if you're balanced (or too yang) then in that specific case there's different advice given, it also encourages faith over reason with the same mindset. Ultimately, I see Swami, Agama Yoga, and the yogic path itself as embracing an attitude of growth, combining the best of both halves (split by Occam's Razor?).
As Wilber is a far better writer than I ever hope to be, I'll conclude with a quote from his introduction to Sense and Soul:
"If you are an orthodox scientist, I would only suggest that, as you have a thousand times in the past when you were working on a problem, let curiosity and wonder bubble up, but in this case don't focus it on a specific solution. Simply let wonder fill your being until it takes you out of yourself and into the staggering mystery that is the existence of the world, a mystery that facts alone can never begin to fill. If Spirit does exist, it will lie in that direction, the direction of wonder, a direction that intersects the very heart of science itself. And you will find, in this adventure, that the scientific method will never be left behind in the search for an ultimate ground."
Thanks again to Derek. Peace.
I'm really happy that Derek (AYR from the previous post) has elected to respond to my last post. For one, I'm happy that he's interested in investing energy in this discussion, but I also appreciate his frankness and focus -- keeping this from becoming a "hyper-philosophized" debate. I'll admit that I sometimes tend towards the pedantic.
I'm in agreement with a lot of what Derek has to say in his most recent post. We do live in a funny place for a yogic stronghold. There is some fluff stuffed in along with the more solid yogic teachings. (To be fair here, Swami has said that he's open to review and revision of some of the aspects of the teachings here which are perhaps less verified or central to the core curriculum, and some of us are working steadily towards this end.) And it was refreshing to read his own experiences with success in some of the yogic practices which are taught at Agama. There's one issue which arises in a few different forms about which I do have a couple things to say -- it's best summarized as Derek put it:
"The danger to any individual, whether it's joe citizen or yogini sue, lies in how they are encouraged or not to use their own rational intellect."
Derek rightly points out a bit of a contradiction in the teachings here at Agama -- but also widespread in esoterica and spirituality. He notes that Swami criticized him for being too skeptical and advocates faith in the yogic system, but also has encouraged people to find things out for themselves, verify theory through experience, experiment, and generally apply the scientific method. Swami has told me as well, that my skepticism may prove a hindrance to my progress in yoga.
We can see the same sort of paradox in Buddhism: one of the "Great Fetters" of Buddhism (along with -- varyingly according to a 10-, 5-, or 6-itemed list -- anger, hatred, laziness, agitation, ignorance, etc.) is vichikitsa, or skeptical doubt. At the same time, Buddha exhorted his monks to not take anything taught to them as truth automatically, to go out and experience it for themselves. Shinzen Young, respected as one of the more "academic" Buddhist teachers, notes in a 2006 talk given in Arizona:
"[Buddha] explicitly told his students that they need not believe something merely because he (or some sacred scripture) claimed it to be so."
So how to account for this apparent contradiction? I like the Buddhist answer --
"[Vichikitsa is] doubt, skepticism, indecisiveness, or vacillation, without the wish to cure it, more like the common idea of cynicism or pessimism than open-mindedness or desire for evidence."
This, to me, hits the nail right on the head -- it's the difference between skepticism (healthy) and cynicism (pathological). It's not that doubt is bad, it's only when you start to cling to the doubting itself that you have a problem. Relating back to Agama, in my talks with Swami about this issue, he's agreed that a difference does exist here (between skepticism and cynicism), and has simply cautioned me to tread the line carefully. It's actually quite telling of Swami's support of this rational-minded inquiring approach, that his "Swami name" takes its root in "viveka", which translates as the ability to exercise discrimination!
To be fair, I see a lot of Swami-sponsored nonsense -- or I should say, a lot of very speculative assertions, often offered without a shred of reference, citation, or serious backup -- float by in the stream of lectures, essays, and discourses offered here at Agama. But I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that all the stuff that seems like bullshit, is bullshit. Derek may remember another tall, male Israeli in our class, who began completely convinced that everything about the chakras and energy and such was a crock, and about a month or two into our course, when questioned about this, he said something like "Well yeah, I feel the energy and my chakras now, I just think that [new topic] is bullshit now instead!" Along the same lines, why not extend some open-mindedness here? I won't go through the entire list of examples you put up, but for one...
"If I rigorously practice garudasana it's not gonna help me study for a test any more so than focusing my mind during a rigorous practice of padahastasana."
Well, okay, to a certain extent, you're right. If you already have the ability to focus your mind powerfully and steadily, it won't make a huge difference even if you decide to go for ice cream rather than do yoga before an exam. But if you don't, well, just below this quote Derek says he likes a particular yoga practice for ajna chakra (governing mental power) because it helps his focus. Why would trataka on ajna help focus any more than any other practice? Is it less effective than doing trataka on swadhisthana? If so, right here we have some empirical evidence implying that things that work on ajna are better for the mind than others. Now, you could say, well why should I believe garudasana has anything to do with ajna? I should think it'd be found in the same pudding he must have gone mucking about in to verify the connection between trataka and ajna -- practice. And sure, if after a good test run, there's no connection, then I think that's completely valid to say it doesn't work for you. But to dismiss it out of hand (ie. "focus is focus") when you've already got what seems to be proof to the contrary seems hasty.
As a related personal example, I find that if I do halasana before trataka, it's much easier to hold focus in trataka. Why should being in that weird upside-down pose help me to blink less while focusing afterwards? Is there any physiological or psychological or any other -ological explanation that covers this? Sherlock Holmes used to bust this one out on Waston (if you're bored with this and in the mood for Conan Doyle, original story linked here:
"When you have eliminated the possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
All I'm saying here is, I agree completely that people's instinct for reason and rational validation should never be quashed or even held in disdain by a good teacher. I do think that some people feel like this as a result of some of the attitudes which are encouraged here, which is unfortunate. I do think Swami makes a linguistic (if not pedagogical) error when he encourages people to be less skeptical. From all my talks with him, it sounds like he often means "cynical" instead (plus a little extra, see below). But it seems to be taking up an equally unstable extreme viewpoint to assume that doctrines like karma are primarily "soothing", or that levitation is a dubious possibility because no one who's "had a few rupees thrown at them" (paraphrased) has come forward to show it off yet. (For one account by a European scientist and mechanical engineer who's witnessed levitation, see The Magus of Java by Kosta Danaos. I have not witnessed levitation myself.) Who knows, really? As I said in my last post, if belief in an "unverifiable" isn't affecting your ability to live and act as a benevolent, kind, and harmonious human being, then why rail against it? We all believe in stuff we can't prove. In the case of karma, I'd say an intelligent interpretation of karma actually encourages you to be a better person. So what if you don't get (objective) proof -- one way or the other -- until you're dead or enlightened?
It's one thing to swallow everything that gets dropped on your plate. It's another thing to refuse any and all food without getting a good taste for it first. My golden mean is somewhere in the middle -- to paraphrase Derek again, do bite and chew, and smack your lips a bit to get the flavor! Then swallow only if all signals are go. I apologize for mixing my metaphors.
I put a little see below up there awhile back, where I proposed that when Swami says "skeptical" is bad, he actually means "cynical". This is true to an extent, but I also believe he's noting another important truth here, which is the power of surrender. Everyone's got examples of times when they fought with a particular lesson to be learned, only to find in the end that the fastest way to "get it" was to give up the struggle and let go into whatever it was that they were facing. I think it's a given that, could you be absolutely, 100% sure of the verity of a certain set of teachings, there'd be no question that to throw yourself fervently into their study would yield the most brilliant results. The problem of course is that you can never be 100% sure, at least with something so abstract as "enlightenment" or the status of one's soul. So this is where healthy skepticism comes in, to gradually discover for yourself which is the wheat and which is the chaff. But Swami (and any other similarly minded teacher) is absolutely right, when he says that skepticism -- even the healthy kind -- will slow you down. For some of us, it's a speed bump we're willing, even happy to take, to ensure as best we can that we're not headed for the edge of a cliff, or a brick wall. Eventually though, if you find through repeated verification a set of teachings you can really trust, then by all means, jump in -- you'll only be dragging yourself down if at that point you insist on more and more and more proof. This is the devolution from skeptic to cynic.
One more point to make, in response to this quote from Derek:
"There was a time in history when faith and dogma ruled people's lives... it was called the 'dark ages' and people were miserable with illness, poverty, and despair. Those days were supplanted by the age of reason or enlightenment."
Steven Levitt likes to make the distinction in his work between causality and correlation -- just because two things are going on at the same time, doesn't imply that one causes the other. In this case, I don't think that a life governed by faith is causal to misery, any more than a life governed by reason is causal to happiness or comfort. It's pretty obvious that illness, poverty, and despair were and are still rampant since the onset of the Age of Enlightenement. To be sure, modern medicine and technology has created more opportunity to live well, but that's just one side of the story.
I notice on Derek's site that the "Bi-partisan Reading List" includes both Ken Wilber and David Deida. Both of these authors stress that as you move from one stage of growth to another, in the most integral way of progress it's vital not to dissociate yourself from the positive characteristics of whatever you've outgrown. Just as much as I think reason and science has its place in the healthy pursuit of spirituality, so I think faith and surrender are equally and absolutely essential.
Speaking of Wilber, he has one book titled The Marriage of Sense and Soul (really an excerpt from a much larger work) which addresses this exact issue eloquently. The basic idea is that faith and reason don't have to be mutually exclusive. I wholeheartedly embrace this idea, as I think is also the essential message at Agama. Just like Agama pushes a "yang" lifestyle because most people are (supposedly) too "yin", but if you're balanced (or too yang) then in that specific case there's different advice given, it also encourages faith over reason with the same mindset. Ultimately, I see Swami, Agama Yoga, and the yogic path itself as embracing an attitude of growth, combining the best of both halves (split by Occam's Razor?).
As Wilber is a far better writer than I ever hope to be, I'll conclude with a quote from his introduction to Sense and Soul:
"If you are an orthodox scientist, I would only suggest that, as you have a thousand times in the past when you were working on a problem, let curiosity and wonder bubble up, but in this case don't focus it on a specific solution. Simply let wonder fill your being until it takes you out of yourself and into the staggering mystery that is the existence of the world, a mystery that facts alone can never begin to fill. If Spirit does exist, it will lie in that direction, the direction of wonder, a direction that intersects the very heart of science itself. And you will find, in this adventure, that the scientific method will never be left behind in the search for an ultimate ground."
Thanks again to Derek. Peace.
