CHAPTER TWO
2.3 Objectivity and Truth
2.3.2 Truth Perspectives
The search for Truth in the Vedic sciences may be likened to the methods of phronetic research - that is, in terms of its reliance on intuition, experience and judgement of an expert in the field. With these central features in mind I will examine how Truth is generated in the ISKCON understanding, such a description being based mainly on the disseminations of the ISKCON scriptures and the arguments of Satsvarupa das Goswami (1977).
The Vedas46 explain that there exists a category of Truth unknowable by direct
perception or by the inductive method. In Bhagavad-gita As it Is (1983: verse 4.34) it is stated: "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Enquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the Truth". This primary deliverer of knowledge is known as the guru, or spiritual master.
According to Satsvarupa, (1977) the Vedic concept of authority does not have any negative connotation that authorities in Western culture seem to create, but refers to a deliverer of primary knowledge whose qualification stems from the concordance between his preaching and practice, and in ISKCON, his linkage to a disciplic succession
(Bhagavad-gita As it Is, 1983: 34) or sampradaya that can be historically traced back to Caitanya and beyond, from which the message of the Vedas descends.47 Furthermore in ISKCON, the guru's spiritual standards and activities is subject to stringent monitoring by the Governing Body Commission.48 The scientist may regard this process as dogmatic and indeed his scientific conscience may not allow him to accept such a process. In this regard however, we may examine the following interesting perspective on the dogma of the scientific method as described by Rauche (1990).
46 The word Vedas is being used in a broad sense, as ISKCON understands it.
47 In my findings chapter (Chapter 4) I deliberate further on the role of the guru in ISKCON.
48 In establishing ISKCON, Bhaktivedanta Swami developed a corporate form of governance48 in 1970, called the Governing Body Commission (GBC), which did not invest spiritual or managerial authority in any one particular guru (Ravindra Swarup dasa, 1999) but a committee of spiritual masters to oversee ISKCON.
Rauche (1990) regards the search for Truth as central to the various fields of activities that man conducts. It is significant that it his realization of reality and life's conditions as constantly changing that motivates him to search for that knowledge that would free him from his contingent49 experience, which prompts the production of his various theories.
Yet, the fact that man still continues to conduct research into this question, Rauche
argues, indicates that he has not found the Truth. Since scientific methods are man-made, he asserts, no scientific theory can be irrefutable and will remain problematic and
contentious. Rauche (1990) regards the various theories that are methodologically constituted from the various types of knowledge as truth perspectives rather than Truth.
Such truth perspectives are limited to man's contingent experience and specific to particular historical circumstances. A similar view is shared by Strauss and Corbin (1998: 171) that "truth is enacted", that is to say that theories (or interpretations) are not eternal truths since they are subject to modification and refutation, as well as embedded in history, i.e. limited in time.
In his essay, Rauche continues a vehement critique of Karl Popper's functionalistic method50 as he applied it to the sciences as well as historical and social phenomena.
Functionalistic methods produce knowledge of only the sciences and technology, which become destructive when absolutized, and do not comprise the whole truth about man, who "besides functional aspirations, has also other desires, such as moral, aesthetic and religious ones" (Rauche, 1990: 263). Thus the absolutization of functionalistic methods, which he regards as a "cult of scientism and technologism", results in the "development of a false consciousness, an alienation from reality as a contingent experience" resulting in an estrangement of man from his fellow-man.
i.e. changing or variable
50 Karl Popper (1959) introduced the concept of falsification in the sciences - that for a theory to be scientific it must be falsifiable, i.e. liable to modification by the discovery of new facts. In this way scientific knowledge expands. Rauche criticizes Poppers's claim to an increase in knowledge, that it means the increase of one type of knowledge only, i.e. the functional processes of science and technology.
According to Satsvarupa (1977) there is a conflict between the empiric investigation of the Vedas51 on one hand, and the Vedic versions explanations of its own origins, purpose and nature, on the other. The Vedic version is not accepted by empiric scientists.
Scientists deem the Vedas claims to divine origin, mythological, and the study of the Vedas via a guru for extracting religious legitimacy is considered unscholarly. Indeed the Vedic paradigm insists on Truth52, and although there is an intersection between the academic and spiritual framework as regards the enquiry to establish Truth, there exists a difference in how knowledge is derived in these different arenas.53 If an investigator subjects the Vedas to the critical-historical or empirical approach he will be faced with the very scenario that the phronetic social scientists are arguing against: that the tools of natural sciences and its methodology will not do justice to the understanding of Vedic thought and culture.
My examination of phenomena in a spiritual context spontaneously lends itself to
academic rigour by the use of academic arguments on notions of Truth, as well as the use of ethnographic methodology. My committed position, is to remain an ethnographic scientist - to observe and interpret data as is expected of a social scientist committed to this field of research, yet aware of the limitations of functionalistic dogmatism. In the above section I have argued a case for the deep-insider, noting especially the objectivity and validity issues of such a stance. I have also discussed the notions of truth as
described by the natural sciences, the social sciences and the Vedic paradigm, likening the use of intuition, experience and judgement (as well as learning and realization) of the Vedic process to that of the position of the expert in the phronetic social sciences. My approach however, is to allow theological voice to be supported by academic rigour, which leads to the consideration of validity issues in qualitative research.
The classification of what constitutes the Vedas is a source on ongoing debate between different scholars of religion. The reference to "Vedas" here is how it is understood in ISKCON.
B The scriptural injunctions and ideas of Truth will be further developed in Chapter 5.
53 An academic study usually involves the rigour of the scientific method while spiritual knowledge is based on accepting knowledge from scriptural authority, and confirming that by its practice - what is called realization" of knowledge by experience - vijnana. This may loosely translate as the difference between knowledge and wisdom.