CHAPTER FIVE Findings: Part Two
5.2 Notions of Truth
5.2.2 Methods of Enquiry
From the data it can be assumed that Truth is considered as "enacted" or "historically embedded" or exists as an "objective" reality. Elite informers were asked about possible points of intersection between how Truth is generated and observed in the spiritual arena and in the empirical world. Devamrita Swami responded that
The proper arena of academic intelligence is to try to understand what the enduring truth is; what exists, if anything, besides just matter. We don't decry academic intelligence.
We just say that it should be focused on the proper issues.
Devamrita Swami felt that empiricists are "locked into a certain level" of knowledge acquisition because they do not accept that knowledge is "state specific". According to one's consciousness, different levels of reality could be accessed. This access, according to the Vedic system, he explained, had to do with one's habits, consciousness and purity.
Extrapolating further from the philosophy of quantum physics, Devamrita Swami explained that according to Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, when scientists are studying nature, it was not so much nature they were studying but nature revealed according to the particular method of questioning; "what you see depends on how you look". Extending the point he claimed that "what you see does not only depend on how you look, but who is looking!" The objectivity that scientists claim, he concluded, was
"simply part of their subjectivity".
This is in keeping with the idea of Bhakti Caitanya Swami's response that one's premise and conviction is linked to how one understands the Truth:
Bhakti Caitanaya Swami; The meeting point is the basic conviction: Am I a devotee?
Am I not a devotee?
He explained that the acceptance of the conviction, or identity as a devotee, will frame how the devotee will begin to perceive the Truth, as well as how he will function.
Accepting the spiritual premise will lead to a spiritual understanding of Truth, whereas if one, on an empirical level accepts that one's identity is "I am this body" and that one is part of the material world, then these two ideas of Truth will be at odds. He regarded the capacity of the empiricists to conceive of and understand the Absolute Truth would be limited in terms of the parameters within which their minds functioned. Quoting an example, that Krishna is said to be, uadyam purana purusam navayuvanams ca" - "the original, most ancient person who is always a fresh youth", he mentioned that the
materialistic thinker will not be able to accommodate the two opposing concepts; either someone is very old or is a young person. The material consciousness, because of the relativities that it is exposed to in material life, would not be able to accurately
understand the Absolute, and a particular type of logic needs to be applied to accommodate the concept of "Absolute Truth".
If the Truth, as the elite informers understood it, was not so accessible through the methodologies of empiric sciences, then how was this Truth operationalized or managed in the material world, a question I asked in my interview.
Bhakti Caitanya Swami: The spiritual nature exists behind the material nature, supporting it, but we need to be able to penetrate it by rendering devotional service in order to make contact.
Devamrita Swami: By acting upon them; apply your senses according to what Krishna says then you will get the experience.
KKS: Spiritual truth is stored within scriptures. Spiritual truth is also revealed from within the heart by the Supreme Lord. Spiritual truth is manifest in personalities who are the personification of the scriptures.
The elite informers are suggesting that Truth as they understood it could be accessed through what is called "devotional service", that there had to be a practical application of instructions given in scripture. Scripture here would refer to those in the tradition of the ISKCON. Additionally the process was to approach "personalities" that practiced the instructions of the scriptures, which referred to the role of the guru in the life of the devotee practitioner.190 By these two methods the practitioner begets a revelation of spiritual truths, which is likened to the role of intuition discussed by Flyvbjerg (2001).
previously discussed in section 4.4.1.3
Thus, in this section I responded to the data generated on the notions of Truth in the academic and spiritual modes of enquiry. Several viewpoints about objectivity, subjectivity and Truth in the empirical and social sciences produced the rationale to investigate how Truth was understood by the devotees. The data suggested that
academic enquiry is not discouraged by those following a spiritual mode of inquiry, but in line with several academic debates, devotees regard Truth produced by academic research as limited, and its claims to its objectivity, debatable. Given that the devotee framed his identity in accordance with Truth as he derived it from the devotional process in which he was engaged, I respond to the data generated about spiritual notions of Truth in the next section.