When I say “understanding is not required”, it is an acknowledgment that I do not need to thoroughly understand something intellectually. As in the last entry, my accepting a very limited, and totally non-intellectual understanding is based on love and faith, not intellect. Pursuing a thorough, intellectual understanding would be fear based and would very likely detract from or completely eliminate the spiritual experience. As several workers in the field have realized, scientific analysis and an attempt at a thorough understanding of spiritual things frequently conflicts with or eliminates spiritual events. The intellect and the spiritual represent different paradigms and one cannot be used to evaluate the other, except in very simple ways. For example, it is possible through scientific study to show that healing touch expedites healing in mice but not why or how.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Understanding is not Required
When I say “understanding is not required”, it is an acknowledgment that I do not need to thoroughly understand something intellectually. As in the last entry, my accepting a very limited, and totally non-intellectual understanding is based on love and faith, not intellect. Pursuing a thorough, intellectual understanding would be fear based and would very likely detract from or completely eliminate the spiritual experience. As several workers in the field have realized, scientific analysis and an attempt at a thorough understanding of spiritual things frequently conflicts with or eliminates spiritual events. The intellect and the spiritual represent different paradigms and one cannot be used to evaluate the other, except in very simple ways. For example, it is possible through scientific study to show that healing touch expedites healing in mice but not why or how.
