​As the spiritual is not visible or quantifiable, how can we know that we are not pursuing something delusional?

Answer Podcast

In materialism, because everything is quantifiable, so there is at least clarity of what we want and how much we want. Sometimes we may reject materialism and then we may end up seeking some delusion of the mind.
How do we know what we are pursuing is real? Yeah, good question. So, Einstein, I think it is Einstein who said that all that counts is not countable. And all that is countable does not count.
So, all that counts, all that matters, it is not necessarily countable. And all that is countable does not necessarily count. So, yes, measurability is an important parameter in evaluating what to do and how much to do in life.
But that is not the only parameter. When we are with our loved ones, when we are doing something meaningful in our life, the satisfaction that comes from it, that cannot be really quantified. The whole of medical science is based on helping people to be free from pain.
But there is no medical instrument that can measure pain. There is no pain-o-meter. If I have a fracture, the doctor can say bone is this much misaligned, must be a lot of pain.
But you cannot actually quantify pain on a scale. And yet pain is real for us. So, that means there is much to life that is not measurable.
And just because things are not measurable, we do not say that it is all subjective and it is all illusory. We want to avoid pain. So, if I am sitting and I have some boil or something on my body, so I always try to shift and try to find out a position where there is minimum friction and minimum pain.
So, although pain is not quantifiable in terms of measurable, it is still real. And we try to adjust things in such a way that pain can be minimized and pressure can be increased. So, just because something is not measurable, that does not mean that it is delusional.
Now, when we come to spirituality, in spirituality there is philosophy and there is religion. So, just as in science, there is theory and there is experiment. Theory offers propositions.
This is like this, this is like this. The experiment offers means for verifying or disproving theory. Similarly, philosophy offers us propositions about the nature of reality.
For example, philosophy tells us you are not the body, you are the soul. And religion tells us, gives us the practices by which we can realize the philosophy. So, religion is not just meant to be a set of rituals that are done because it is a part of my culture.
Some people may do it like that. But religion is meant to give us practices by which we can realize what is taught in the philosophy. For example, philosophy tells us at our core we are spiritual.
The religion, chanting Hare Krishna, worshipping Krishna, they are practices which spiritualize our consciousness and enable us to experience non-material happiness. When we experience that, we realize, oh, this is for real. So, prateksha avagamam dharmyam su-sukham gharatmau.
In 9.2, Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, prateksha avagamam, that which is confirmed by within through experience, that is the path of bhakti, that is the path of yoga, bhakti yoga which the Bhagavad Gita teaches. So, what will happen to us if we start practicing spiritualities is two things. We should study the philosophy.
If we just, something we start practicing without evaluating with our intelligence, then we may chase after some delusion. But if we study the philosophy objectively, intelligently, at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, vimrishaita dasheshena yathe chisita kuru, in 18.63 he says, deliberate deeply and then decide what you want to do. So, Krishna is actually appealing to Arjuna’s intelligence.
Krishna is not just demanding blind following. So, we should use the intelligence to evaluate the philosophy. Do things make sense? It’s not that all questions will be answered immediately.
But that doesn’t happen in any field of life. If I study quantum physics, I have to study for so many years before I can start making sense of its concepts. But at least basic questions will get reasonable answers.
The philosophy starts making sense, then okay, this is a theory which could be true. I don’t know whether it is true or not, but at least it makes sense. And then when the religion is there, we practice that and we experience higher happiness.
Through that higher happiness, we are able to give up lower drives. Our own self-sabotaging programs that are there within us, we are increasingly able to get rid of them. Bhakti, pareesha anubhava viraktir anyatra cha.
Bhakti is a process which gives us pareesha anubhava, experience of God. And the result of that experience of God is viraktir anyatra cha. We become detached from other things.
And that means we become detached from self-defeating conceptions of happiness. So when we see this happening, we start feeling more peaceful, more joyful. And we start feeling lesser pulled by unhealthy drives.
This is what I am experiencing is real. This is the confirmatory test for that. So we can avoid chasing any delusions of the mind by studying the philosophy using our intelligence and practicing the religion in a way that helps us to verify the philosophy.
And then not only will we experience, we will be pursuing reality, but actually we are pursuing the supreme reality. Does this answer your question? Thank you.