​Why are academic scholars of a tradition often derided by the tradition?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so there are devotees who may go into academic studies and they may try to explain how their, our beliefs our understandings are rational, are logical, are intelligible but in doing this often they are dismissed or derided within the traditional tradition or the traditional movement itself so are such efforts actually useful? See there are different people with different needs different people with different intellectual levels and there is the insider approach to bhakti and there is the outsider approach to bhakti and insider approach is for those who are practicing the outsider approach is for those who are observing, analyzing and commenting on it both can be valid approaches I’ll give an example to illustrate this say a mother has a child maybe a small sweet girl and now the girl is sick and she is taken to a physician now the physician does various tests on her now when she does then the physician does various tests on her in terms of knowledge of the physical parameters the physician may know much more than the mother the physician may know about the blood composition the platelets count the various other physical parameters in the body but the mother may not know any of these so the physician knows about the child the mother knows the child the physician is approaching the child primarily as a biochemical unit the mother is approaching the child as a person to be loved so these are two different ways of looking at it and both have their validity the mother loves the child the doctor treats the child in a different way, in specific situations so now if the mother sees the child only as a count of chemicals that’s not going to work so what happens with academic study of religion it basically goes into the historical study of religion, the textual study of religion, the sociological study of religion that means it approaches religion from various ways other than the heart, religion is ultimately to be experienced within the heart and that inner experience which is all I get I got taste in chanting that is actually I got taste I got bhakti rasa, I felt ecstasy this is actually the success of spirituality success of somebody who is an inside practitioner but from an outsider perspective they say you have to be detached you should be clinically objective so these are completely different ways of approaching the same subject and so because of this there can naturally be great conflict so now if somebody now some people may say that the insider way of studying religion is by which we can learn, we can relish, yes that is true but everybody is not going to be an insider so then those who are outsider they are going to evaluate, what are you people doing and if they don’t get an insider understanding in their terms then they are going to judge and they are going to give comments which may often be derogatory because they are observing from just from a outside perspective, they are not experiencing anything so what is required is that there are insiders who go outside and understand how outsiders look at it and then explain that to outsiders but in this process we have to be careful that we don’t, because in the spiritual path when we associate with people who are not having faith then we also start losing our faith now it is not that the faith cannot withstand intellectual scrutiny but ultimately logic is a game logic is a game it’s a tool, you have to be expert now somebody might be a very heroic policeman and somebody might be a bloodthirsty terrorist now if the bloodthirsty terrorist has a more sophisticated weapon than the policeman then the bloodthirsty terrorist will win because their virtue is not important, the weapon that is there is important so like that if somebody has to go into the academic field logic, reasoning capacity it is a weapon so there are atheists in the academic study of religion they use the reasoning capacity and if their reasoning capacity their logic is better than the logic of devotees who are entering into that field then devotees can get influenced by that it is not that the devotional truths are wrong but at that point their capacity to wield logical skills their logical skills may not be adequate enough so the academic study of religion is not for everyone the person has to have adequate intellectual skills along with a deep reservoir of faith to be able to fight in that realm using the tools of logic so now the doubts that intellectuals have common people don’t have those doubts so there are two problems that come when devotees go into the academic study of religion one is they themselves lose their faith because all these arguments I never knew these arguments were there also now those arguments also have answers it is like if a war is going on a foot soldier fights with a foot soldier a horse warrior fights with a horse warrior an elephant warrior fights with an elephant warrior now if this devotee is entering into academics he is like a foot soldier and he tries to fight with an elephant warrior it is just not going to work but they have to be adequately trained adequately intellectually equipped otherwise they will lose their faith second thing is they don’t have to bring the doubts of the academia into the insiders because insiders don’t need to know about these things if they get those questions they will approach the right people and ask them so now what needs to be done definitely is that those who are trained in this way if I consider this is the insiders they are going to understand things by inner experience but those who are not going to understand by inner experience we need to explain things to them rationally in terms of they may not accept it it may not be acceptable, they may not practice it but it should be at least intelligible I don’t accept what you are saying but I understand where you are coming from so we should be at least at that level it is not that insiders think oh we are the best in the world and outsiders think you are crazy it is not like that insiders understand I am practicing a path to get spiritual experience and outsiders also, there will be different levels some atheists and skeptics they will reject but others, ok you people what you say makes sense but I don’t want to follow this so what happens for this explanation the academic study of religion and academic explanation of the religious experience is important so this is specialized service and devotees were equipped if they take up this service it is a very valuable contribution but because it is a specialized service it is not something which everyone can do nor is it something which everyone can appreciate because what happens our presentations should be solving problems that people have should be answering questions that people have but the questions that academics raise most common people don’t have those questions so if I start dealing with issues answering questions you never had what is going on this is not relevant to me so our presentations if we start addressing at a level which is too high which just doesn’t deal with people then that can alienate people so those who are practicing this those who are getting the academic study of religion you know this is for a special audience and focus their presentations on that audience and get the acquired skills for doing that if they do that then it can be a very valuable contribution and to a large extent many other religions Christianity, Judaism, especially Buddhism, they have got many expert academic academic presenters of their religion. Unfortunately we don’t have that much and it is a very valuable service if devotees can take it up but it has to be done with a lot of caution and with acquiring the necessary skills under the guidance of those who are our well-wishers and those who know us well thank you very much actually to answer these questions