That last thing got me thinking: how can a person know whether what I\u2019m saying is actually genuine stuff or I\u2019m full of shit; assuming they are unable to personally verify crucial parts, and assuming that dying, ending in front of a Judge of Karma and being told the exact truth isn\u2019t a currently available option.<\/p>\n
Tl;dr: you can\u2019t. Sorry. It\u2019s theoretically impossible to verify things if your actual ability to verify them is defined as insufficient, as a premise. You can believe this or that, for all the good it will do you.<\/p>\n
Long version:<\/p>\n
You can work with probabilities. For instance, if someone is fake, they are generally fake everywhere, not in just one thing. So, if you can\u2019t verify a certain part of someone\u2019s claims, you can verify everything around it. It\u2019s not foolproof, but it\u2019s better than nothing, I guess. For instance, if someone does reliably rational and good stuff at every point you can check, it\u2019s reasonable to assume that the trend continues in places where you can\u2019t check. Unfortunately, that\u2019s also something an expert deceiver would think of, so you can only rule out the possibility of one being an incompetent, mentally ill person. A deliberate rational fake will do his homework, lay out all kinds of evidence in spheres you can verify, and use that to sell you something really dangerous in spheres you can\u2019t verify. What\u2019s important to know is that this absolutely rules out a crazy person. A crazy person will be too crazy to do any of this. In order for someone to plant deceptions decades in advance and do this kind of complex trickery, the only two options you have is genuine and expert deceiver. Crazy is not an option. You can eliminate crazy quite easily by testing in this manner. You can\u2019t eliminate malicious or evil.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a possibility that one is not crazy, but merely deluded, and then works hard on sharing their delusion. That\u2019s true, and I\u2019ve seen it, but it\u2019s kind of always obvious, for the following reasons. If we\u2019re talking about spiritual things, one way of checking for authenticity is checking for overlap with existing spiritual revelations. We are here assuming that a certain percentage of those are authentic. Something that\u2019s authentic will need to have overlap with other authentic stuff, unless we\u2019re dealing with a situation that everything else is 100% wrong and just this one thing is 100% right. This is very unlikely, for all kinds of reasons that I think don\u2019t require a detailed explanation. For instance, it would mean that the level of difficulty is so great, that probability of success for everybody else would be 0, and then it suddenly jumps to 1 in only one instance. Albeit not theoretically impossible, that\u2019s usually not how things work in practice. In practice, someone gets something right, and others make improvements upon this based on things that work in practice, and at some point you get a working theory, which makes predictions and so on. Even in things like alchemy, you had things that worked, such as distillation, precise measurements and so on. Based on this, actual chemistry was made. It didn\u2019t just happen out of thin air, after alchemy being 100% wrong. You can have theory that\u2019s wrong, but you have reliable ways of funnelling gases and weighing compounds, purifying compounds, making non-reactive dishes and so on. Astronomy existed in form of very precise measurements before it had a solid theory, and those measurements were in fact incredibly precise, precise enough for Newton to have used them in making his theoretical system of mechanics. He didn\u2019t just work with thin air, he worked with precise measurements of planetary positions by Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Tycho Brahe didn\u2019t know how planets moved, but he measured their positions with extreme accuracy. So, it was all based on some kind of reality, regardless of the fact that the theory they came up with was usually flawed. Everything is always flawed in this world. It wasn\u2019t all pulled from someone\u2019s arse, and that\u2019s what matters. They thought Sun revolved around Earth, but they knew the position of Venus on every day of the year with such precision you wouldn\u2019t believe. So, when someone came up with a better theory, they could re-use the measurements with complete confidence, because it was spot on.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I mean by overlap with existing stuff. The interpretation might differ wildly, but there\u2019s some serious common ground in most authentic cases. The way Hindus put this, there must be alignment of Shastra, Guru and Sadhu. They go too far with this, because they assume their scripture to be far more than it actually is, but the idea is that scripture, your guru and the genuine spiritual people will be in alignment and will all teach you the same stuff, which is how you can tell it\u2019s true. If your guru is telling you stuff no other spiritual person is talking about, and there\u2019s nothing about it in the scriptures, the possibilities are that the guru is either fake, or he\u2019s a point of revelation of higher reality than anything else up to that point. Since the latter is something that would literally be a unique point in history, the former is more likely to be true. There are, however, such points of revelation, and they do happen every few thousand years, so it\u2019s not impossible. It\u2019s just that they don\u2019t happen every Tuesday, and if you\u2019re dealing with such a person it would be accompanied by serious indications which would increase the probability of it being true. For instance, miracles, visions and spiritual experiences by others etc. would be likely to lend credibility to such a person, but if you\u2019re unable to personally verify any of it, it becomes a recursive issue of faith \u2013 basically, you would need to believe that a person b had a valid spiritual experience regarding person a, in order to accept validity of person a. If you\u2019re unable to verify, you can only default to faith, choosing one way or another depending on your personal character and attitude.<\/p>\n
So, if your ability to verify is zero, you need to default to faith, and in that case you are also going to be unlikely to resort to faith either, so you are likely to reject the whole thing. However, if your ability to verify is non-zero, but incomplete, you will still have to ultimately resort to faith, but this faith will be based on something not wholly insubstantial. If that is of any comfort, even I resort to faith when I\u2019m not in a state where I\u2019m directly experiencing something. After a few days or weeks at most, a spiritual experience becomes a mere thing in memory, and you need to believe that what you experienced was this and not that, because you\u2019re no longer there and no longer able to verify it directly. Essentially, if you\u2019ve been to the Moon, a day after you landed back on Earth it\u2019s a mere memory. Twenty years later it\u2019s an old, faded memory, and even for you it\u2019s a matter of faith to believe that the memory is accurate and represents what it seems to represent. So, you can never really avoid resorting to faith in this world. It\u2019s a matter of faith for you to believe that you can drive a car once you\u2019re not actually driving it, let alone anything else. But if you have something you can verify, your faith will be more established and stronger. For instance, if you had visions of angels or Gods telling you things about me, you can still be sensitive to doubt regarding your experience, but you\u2019ll be in a better position than someone who didn\u2019t have any such experience and can only believe this or that based on emotions and thoughts. This is a very weak basis for faith and I wouldn\u2019t actually recommend it. The way I would personally verify things is try the stuff they teach and see if it\u2019s useful. If it produces a genuine spiritual experience, it\u2019s still not perfect evidence, but it\u2019s good enough to assume there\u2019s some serious shit going on there. However, evidence of supernatural is not evidence of the Divine, and one needs to be extra careful with that difference. Eventually, the only solid way to know whether one is a genuine spiritual person or not is to be one yourself. The closer you are to that, the easier it is for you to verify. The more distant you are, the harder everything is. That\u2019s why I personally don\u2019t actually care much about convincing people of anything regarding myself. I mostly tell them how yoga works and how to practice it. If they manage to become genuine spiritual persons, my job there is done, and I still wouldn\u2019t care much whether they know who I am or not, because that\u2019s actually so demanding that even I don\u2019t actually remember who I am most of the time, and when I do it\u2019s not the most pleasant thing, since I need to be separated from it for the duration of this life. So, the entire thing about people wanting to know who I actually am and how authentic I am is a pastime for idiots, beginners and people otherwise completely unqualified for verifying anything in spiritual spheres. You can know that I\u2019m smart, and you can reliably establish that I\u2019m not crazy, but whether I\u2019m some kind of a super-Devil who is here to deceive you, or a yogi who attained some spiritual experience he\u2019s probably exaggerating, a yogi who attained spiritual experience he\u2019s genuinely reporting, or a God who manifested a tulku<\/i> here in order to do some things unique in history, you can\u2019t actually know for sure, and relying much on faith in these matters isn\u2019t actually productive. Faith is good when you experienced or did something and you remember it a month later, and you believe it\u2019s all true. In such a case, it\u2019s hard faith, because it\u2019s based on your own experience and facts. Having that kind of faith is essential. However, having faith that\u2019s based on weak foundations, on mere belief without actual experience and facts, it\u2019s not actually something I would recommend having, and it\u2019s better to work on establishing better foundations for your beliefs, than to rely too much on feeble nonsense.<\/p>\n
So, that\u2019s that. If you\u2019re not sure who I am, and want to be, I would recommend against mere belief, one way or another. I would recommend learning more, having more actual experience, developing a stronger spiritual core, attaining spiritual transformations and initiations, attaining darshan of God, not once but many times, and learning about reality from that. As a corollary of great knowledge, you will understand more about me without actually bothering to know more about me, which is as it should be.<\/p>\n
But without that, if the difference between what I am and what you are is too great, you wont be able to know or verify anything, and that\u2019s not even your actual problem. Your actual problem is that if you knew anything about God, you wouldn\u2019t have that problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That last thing got me thinking: how can a person know whether what I\u2019m saying is actually genuine stuff or I\u2019m full of shit; assuming they are unable to personally verify crucial parts, and assuming that dying, ending in front … Continue reading