Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on September 4, 2011.
In this lecture, Swami Bhaskarananda explores the relationship between faith and reason from a Vedantic perspective. He begins by examining what is meant by “truth” and “reality,” defining the real as that which is eternal and changeless, and noting that genuine truth must meet this standard. He then clarifies that faith and knowledge are not inherently opposed: we both know and have faith that we exist, and this conviction does not conflict with reason. Using vivid examples—from failed doomsday predictions and claimed alien abductions to geometry’s axioms and belief in distant ancestors—he shows how faith can be misplaced, how it often calls upon reasoning to defend itself, and how reasoning itself can lead to new forms of faith.
Turning to Vedanta, Swami Bhaskarananda outlines six classical means of validating truth: sense perception, inference, reliable testimony, comparison, postulation, and non-perception. The Vedas are regarded as reliable testimony because their teachings have been repeatedly verified by sages through direct experience. He surveys views on reason from Western philosophers and from Swami Vivekananda, and illustrates both the power and limits of pure reasoning with Zeno’s paradox and the story of a hedonistic teacher refuted by a child. The talk concludes with Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching that in this age the best spiritual approach is faith strengthened and guided by reasoning, so that devotion avoids fanaticism and moves toward genuine knowledge of the Self.
