Pariprasna Q & A with Srimat Swami Tapasyananda (1904 to 1991), Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order.
January 2019
Approach the wise sages, offer reverential salutations, repeatedly ask proper questions, serve them and thus know the Truth. — Bhagavad Gita
The Vedanta Kesari
22
Question: Where should reasoning stop and give place to faith? Maharaj: Reason and faith work in different fields, although up to a certain point they can go together. Reason, in the sense of logical inference, works on the basis of data provided by the senses. It works as deduction and induction. Deduction is based on a general proposition which is taken for granted. This general proposition in its turn is based upon induction, upon observation of sense data and verification through experiment. Thus sense data are the material which all logical processes deal with ultimately. The function of the logical process is to correlate these data, arrive at valid generalizations, draw implications in the light of the laws of thought, and thus help the intellectual understanding of perceived facts. It will be seen that reason or logic in itself cannot give us any data. It can only process data obtained through perception. So logical reasoning can effectively function only where sense data are available, ie., within the limitation of our powers of observation with senses alone or senses aided by instruments. With regard to anything beyond, it can only work as an unreliable pointer to many possibilities, creating a sense of learned ignorance and uncertainty. Thus it cannot give us any conviction about the existence or nature of God, although it can point towards several possibilities in this respect. In the field of the Spirit, which is non-spatial and non-temporal, only inspiration or supersensuous understanding (Jnana) can give us any data carrying conviction. To think that logic and reason can do so is to expect the impossible. But before Jnana is generated in us, that is, in our present state of understanding confined to spatial and temporal things, how are we to proceed with a working conviction on such a fundamental truth as existence of God? It is here that the faculty of our understanding known as faith has to come into operation. Faith is the capacity of the mind to accept on trust the ultimate and otherwise ununderstandable facts of life with a power very near that of conviction. Trust is of course always on the basis of a reliable authority—a scripture or a teacher. It is an abuse of this faculty to invoke it in all petty affairs of life or to support the mystery-mongering tendencies of people. Its legitimate application is with regard to the ultimate questions of life where sense powers and logic are quite helpless in giving either data or certainty by themselves. Does God exist? What is His nature? Is there a hereafter? Has life got any ultimate meaning? How are we to live so as to realize the ultimate end of life? Questions such as these can be decided only on the basis of scriptures, which are divine revelations, or on the authority of great illumined world-
