Last evening, I overheard a couple of seemingly learned men immersed in an avid discussion as I took my daily stroll by the poolside. Their topic, quite to my mind’s delight, was the soul. But the treatment they meted out to it was mindless enough to quickly turn my delight into sheer dismay. The diabolical liberty with which they speculated about the soul – what it is, where it came from, and what happens to it – conjured up memories of me drafting the prelude to my forthcoming work, which delves into everything that is wrong with much of philosophy.

As outlandish as some of their speculations were, it was bemusing to note how much at peace they were with the vastly different views they held on several counts. I wondered to myself: would such lavish tolerance also be shown in disagreements over, let’s say, science, politics, or any aspect of what we reckon to be the ‘matter of fact’ world? Indeed, that might make the world at least somewhat of a better place, but let this not deflect us from the moot issue here. From trifling everyday conversations to the most erudite of discourses, it has almost been our tradition to give reasoning a pass when dealing with anything spiritual. It is as if spirituality made our brains switch to a wholly different dimension, where even the most absurd piece of argument barely offends the scientific temper of the most enlightened of men.

On my way back home, I was reminded why, nearly two decades ago, a thin paperback on basic Buddhist principles left me deeply inspired. The Buddha, it is known, sidestepped speculation – not remotely because he lacked in metaphysical flair, but in the very interest of pre-empting distractions in the way to nirvana. The Buddha was also unique in his doctrine of anatta (there being no eternal soul) and the immense importance that he ascribed to the role of the mind in attaining enlightenment. Somehow, much of mainstream spirituality has gone way overboard with the few instances where intellect and reason seem to hinder spiritual progress. These instances have so strongly jibed with man that he has few qualms in completely banishing intellect from the realm of spirituality, relying solely on things like experience, instinct, and intuition. Not only has the common substrate of intellect and experience gone underappreciated, but the artificial chasm generated between them condemns the not-so-intuitive majority either to passive spiritual followership or no spirituality at all. As you would expect, it remains outside the scope of this blog to delve into the details, but I would hereby like to leave you with one question to ponder on. If we supposed that the universe was made of one overarching, non-dual substance, as many mainstream philosophies do, what were the chances that intellect and experience were fundamentally disparate? More importantly, how likely would it be that they led to very different destinations?

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