Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Once a man walked up to the sea shore carrying a pitcher in his hand. Is the sea water accessible to the pitcher? It will not be right to say that it is not accessible. But it will be not completely true to say that it is accessible. It is accessible as well as inaccessible. From the point of view of totality it is not accessible; from a partial or limited point of view it is accessible. A pitcher can also diminish the quantity of the sea water in proportion to its capacity. It is difficult to say that religion is accessible to the intellect. But it is also not easy to say that it is not accessible to the intellect.
Religion is infinite. To say that it is accessible to the intellect amounts to saying that a pitcher can measure the ocean. Infinite truth can be know only through knowledge. Then why was the question asked as to whether religion is accessible to the intellect? Intellect represents the limits of our knowledge. Living beings have merely a trace of knowledge. Many other living beings have the senses as men have. Man alone has it. He has the power to take decisions. He has intuition too. One man accepts religion unquestioningly; another says he will do so only after due deliberation. The former belongs to the class of the faithful; the latter to that of the intellectual. We find these two classes everywhere these days. The intellectual's acceptance of a thing is a consequence of proper evaluation and decision; the faithful's acceptance is the direct outcome of his faith. However, according to me no act of faith is totally devoid of intellectual thinking. It is not possible to have faith without knowledge, even as there can be no ice without water. Just as curds is a condensed form of milk, faith is a condensed form of knowledge. Where the intellect is inadequate as a deciding agency, the heart becomes instrumental in acceptance. Viewed grossly religion seems to be related more to faith and much less to the intellect. But a deep examination reveals that one cannot relate to religion without the intellect. In fact, no faithful is devoid of the intellect and no intellectual is devoid of faith. Knowledge and faith both are our norms. Then how can there be only one question: Is religion accessible to the intellect? There should be the second question too: Is religion accessible to faith?