Friday, September 22, 2006

Reason vs Faith?

I extracted this wonderful thought of Rajaji from this TVS Shenoy article The debate over 'Reason' vs 'Faith' leaves me cold:

'The way of devotion is not different from the way of knowledge, or Jnana. When intelligence matures and lodges securely in the mind it becomes wisdom. When wisdom is integrated with life and becomes action it becomes Bhakti. Knowledge when it becomes fully mature is Bhakti. To believe that Jnana and Bhakti, knowledge and devotion, are different from each other is ignorance.'

The thing to note, as so emphatically pointed out by Rajaji, is knowledge and its percolated forms are all assimilation of your own surroundings. So make no mistake they are, indeed, the same forms of the truth around you. Ofcourse some of those states are highly inadulterated and distilled and hence give you an enriching experience when you are in that state.