Rationality has a lot to do with spirituality

For the thirty-five years I was an active member of an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), one of my favorite Indian words was sat, truth. 

For example, there was the satguru, the true guru, and satsang, association with truth. Eventually I came to feel that truth was the most important thing. When I concluded that for me, truth was best pursued outside the bounds of RSSB, there was only one thing I could do: leave RSSB.

When I came to the epilogue of Thomas Metzinger's book, The Elephant and the Blind, an examination of pure awareness, his thoughts on intellectual honesty resonated with me. That's something I aspire to, though I certainly don't claim that I'm always capable of intellectual honesty. Far from it.

I can be wrong about lots of things within and without my own mind. As Metzinger notes in excerpts I've shared below from the epilogue of his book, our beliefs directly influence how we experience the world. I have great difficulty looking upon Donald Trump with an open mind, because I believe he is a great danger to the United States and the world.

But at least I'm aware of that bias. Being aware of it, I can at least try to be receptive to Trump's words and actions that might contain a glimmer of truth. Maybe even more than a glimmer (though I'm doubtful about that).

In short, I aspire to rationality, intellectual honesty. I've never considered that rationality and spirituality are opposed. As Metzinger says below, actually they're closely linked, because rationality and spirituality both aspire to know the truth about reality, a goal they share with science.

Enjoy...

Yes, there has been a successful rebellion against organized religion and a fresh global counterculture has emerged. Millions have taken things into their own hands, and this can be seen as one of the major cultural innovations of the twentieth century.

But if one looks at the reality of all the different movements, traditions, and groups that have formed -- especially their irrational belief systems and the resulting social dynamics, which are often pathological and cultlike -- one may conclude that the original innovative impulse has long been outweighed by more mortality denial and self-deception, just in slightly subtler forms than they used to take.

Many of the spiritual movements that have developed in recent decades in Europe and the US have long lost their progressive impulse, and most sectors of spiritual counterculture seem already to have morphed into experience-based forms of privately organized religious delusion.

...We therefore have grounds to wonder whether the people labeling themselves as "SBNR" [spiritual but not religious] or "SBNA" [spiritual but not affiliated] are religious after all, just in a slightly new way. In most of these contemporary forms of "nonreligious spirituality," something is sorely missing: a particular kind of honesty. After all, the opposite of religion is not science, but spirituality.

The ethical principle of intellectual honesty can be analyzed as a special case of the spiritual stance and, in their purest form, the scientific and the spiritual stances emerge from the same basic normative idea. But what exactly is "intellectual honesty"?

"Intellectual honesty" means simply not being willing to lie to yourself. It is closely related to old-fashioned values such as propriety, integrity, and sincerity, as well as to a certain kind of "inner decency." 

Perhaps one could say that striving for intellectual honesty is a very conservative way of being truly subversive. Intellectual honesty might be exactly what the many "teachers" and representatives of cults, organized religions, and theologians of almost any type simply cannot have -- even if they often like to make claims to the contrary.

Intellectual honesty means not pretending to know or even pretending to be able to know the unknowable, while still having an unconditional will to truth and a commitment to the growth of knowledge, which includes being genuinely open to new scientific results.

...A flood of empirical data, as well as the mathematical models of modern computational neuroscience, show how the beliefs we hold directly influence the way that we consciously experience the world -- a simple empirical fact whose importance is hard to overstate when it comes to meditation practice.

Whoever wants to become whole -- a person of integrity -- by gradually resolving all conflict between their actions and values must pursue this harmony with their inner actions as well. This requirement is especially true for their "epistemic actions" -- actions for the sake of knowledge.

We act epistemically whenever we strive for insight, knowledge, true belief, sincerity, and also authentic self-knowledge. To the extent that meditation is an epistemic practice, it cannot work without radical honesty toward oneself, without a self-critical ethics of belief.

There is a bridge between spiritual practice and the ideal of reasonable, rational thought: Both involve an ethics of inner action for the sake of knowledge. Moreover, in both cases, the goal is a systematic enhancement of mental autonomy, of inner freedom.

...The sincere intention of being honest toward oneself is what connects critical rationality and the nonconceptual insight of contemplative practice.

.... But you cannot choicelessly observe your own thoughts as they arise and disappear again if you are not prepared to honestly face what you will now begin to see: the painful restlessness of your very own mind, your violent fantasies, your desire for retaliation, your boredom, your loneliness, your existential despair, or your envy.

...I hope that you are beginning to sense that a strict and altogether old-fashioned form of rationalism could have a lot to do with spirituality -- and with what is still missing in large parts of the spiritual counterculture. 

...Here, my point is that rationality is actually a special form of mindfulness. In order not only to think clearly but also to listen properly -- in order to understand one's opponent -- critical rationality first needs the sincere and nonreactive quality of mindful attention. And then it also needs careful, rational thinking, a way of handling concepts that is as precise as possible.

...Real meditation practice cultivates the conditions of possibility for rational discourse by cultivating the sincere intention of being honest toward oneself. If it doesn't, there is something wrong. 

Comments

[Reader]

In simple words, "spirituality means lying to yourself". Which is naturally true.

[Ron E.]

At a seminar in 2010 at the Philosophisches Seminar Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Metzinger laid the ground for his theory: - “Intellectual honesty means simply not being willing to lie to or fool oneself. Intellectual honesty, my esteemed ladies and gentlemen, is also exactly what representatives of organized religions and theologians of any type simply cannot have. Intellectual honesty means possessing an unconditional desire for truth and knowledge, even where self-knowledge is concerned and even where self-knowledge is not attended by pleasant feelings.”
And in Brian’s posting here from The Elephant and the Blind: - “Many of the spiritual movements that have developed in recent decades in Europe and the US have long lost their progressive impulse, and most sectors of spiritual counterculture seem already to have morphed into experience-based forms of privately organized religious delusion.” And: - “Intellectual honesty means not pretending to know or even pretending to be able to know the unknowable, while still having an unconditional will to truth and a commitment to the growth of knowledge, which includes being genuinely open to new scientific results.”

These observations of Metzinger’s seems to me to be very pertinent. There is a tendency to assign various psychological experiences as being spiritual – in the sense of being mystical or other worldly. But I’m sceptical as to whether Metzinger’s ‘intellectual honesty’ can be applied to those who experience such as quite often people do honestly believe they have experienced something real, something that proves to them that there are different dimensions other than the physical world.

Perhaps science can provide the answer where for example they can replicate such experiences in the laboratory and with certain drugs and ‘prove’ they are physically induced. But even so, recipients of mystical experiences would still maintain their experiences are being honestly reported.

In the meantime, people will still believe what they want (or are conditioned) to believe, regardless of scientific or philosophical statements and findings. Perhaps there is a way to break through the barriers of belief, maybe through honest insight, though the difficulty is that not only are we psychologically prone to accept beliefs (hopes), it is also a crucial attribute of our physical survival.

[Appreciative Reader]

Great post, enjoyed it.

That was a lovely insight: that meditation, particularly insight meditation, leads to intellectual integrity; and the other way around, that intellectual integrity facilitates mindfulness meditation; with each feeding onto the other in a virtuous circle.

Beautiful! Never quite thought of it that way, that specific aspect of it, I mean to say. But agreed, absolutely.

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I’d add to that, if I may, that intellectual integrity is, additionally, an essential ingredient in properly making sense of one’s meditation, and also of oneself and the world; which latter also, IMV, is part of spirituality --- over and above the practice per se and the mindfulness per se. So that’s yet another way how intellectual integrity is indelibly linked to true spirituality.

[sant64]

Everyone here drives a car. Raise your hand if you think you're a good driver.

** Everyone raises their hand **

If you asked that question of every car driver in the US virtually all of them would be strongly of the opinion that they are good drivers.

And yet, there are 17,000 traffic accidents in the US. That's not per month, it's per DAY.

Virtually everyone at fault in those accidents would swear on his mother he was a good driver. Nobody thinks they're a bad driver.

By the same token, everyone on whatever side of whatever political or religious spectrum strongly believes his take on "truth" is thoroughly honest and rational.

It might surprise many people to learn that science is not the bastion of unimpeachable "truth." A scientist will never tell you what truth is. He can't, for he knows that in absolute terms, there is no such thing as "truth." There is only probability.

A scientist will tell you that in absolute terms, there's no absolute certainty that 1 + 1 = 2. I didn't make that up. Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-mathematical-world-real/

I find that rather humbling. It seems to point to what Katagiri Roshi is supposed to have said:

"Whatever you think or say about anything, it's at best only half correct."

It also seems to point to a doorway to acceptance for those who differ with us in religious and political matters: Everyone thinks they have good and abundant reasons why their opinions are correct, are truth.

[Jim]

This guy nails what RS failed to do. Watch this youtube video and learn what meditation is really for- Phaser Episode One

[Gggg]

Do you think you’re a little obsessed?

[Aam]

@Jim.
Please provide video link
Thanks