The difference between doubts and questions
After hearing a spiritual talk, interested members of the audience sometimes respond by saying: “I have a doubt.” However, what they usually have is a [...]
Are we treating our beliefs and our doubts equally?
Suppose we grew up in an environment that fostered belief in things such as the teachings of sacred texts like the Bhagavad-gita. Over time, we [...]
04.40 The liberating power of doubting our doubts (Dealing with doubts 2)
In some sports like judo, players use their opponents’ strength against them. When we are assaulted by doubts, we too can use a similar strategy. [...]
How pride can corrupt both faith and doubt …
We often equate pride with respect-demanding and self-congratulatory hubris. But it can appear much more subtly when it corrupts our two tools for seeking knowledge: [...]
Doubt is a disease that makes the patient believe the doctor is sick
Suppose a patient rejects a doctor’s advice, arguing that it is the doctor who is sick. Such a patient would be considered mentally sick. But [...]
Learning by doubting is like driving by braking
Suppose we are learning to drive a car and suddenly find it veering off course. We will promptly brake and avert any danger. But if that one near-accident makes us paranoid and we refuse to take our foot off the brake, we will never get anywhere.
To lose one’s reason is bad, but to lose everything except one’s reason is far worse
Our reason, our rational faculty, is vital for keeping us intelligently regulated and purposefully directed in life. The use of reason has assisted in the [...]
Get out of the drought of doubt
Doubt is a dangerous obstacle on the devotional path. In a heart scorched by doubt, the nectar of devotion gets evaporated and eliminated. Indeed, doubt [...]
Rejection of all faith as blind faith is blind faith
Skeptics often deride all faith as blind faith – they hold that only by skepticism can one avoid being misled by false belief systems. Yes, [...]
Choosing doubt as the means for knowing is like choosing immobility as the means for traveling
Some contemporary intellectuals are proud of their skepticism. They delight in their capacity to doubt and discredit any belief they encounter, even if that belief [...]
If let cynicism rob our power to trust Krishna, we rob ourselves of our greatest power
We live in an age where it is easy to be cynical. Unscrupulous forces out to fleece us abound in every field. In our everyday [...]
Don’t think things to death; think of the thing called death
Thinking things to death refers to spending so much time analyzing a problem that the time for applying any solution runs out before one decides [...]
No prison imprisons as badly as the prison of doubt
Suppose a patient has been fleeced by a doctor and so can’t trust any doctor. That cynicism imprisons the patient perpetually in disease. A far [...]
See skepticism with skepticism
“I am a skeptic.” Today’s intellectuals often see skepticism as their badge of honor, as the evidence that they are freethinkers, unbound by other’s beliefs [...]