Ways of Knowing

To know is to bring light to a situation; to enlighten; to understand; to make visible.  There are many ways to bring the light of knowledge to bear on something.

In the West we separate religion from philosophy.  Generally philosophy has become an academic concern; while religion seems to be faith and ritual.  In the ancient East, philosophy was as important as religion in grounding and developing the human soul.

For purposes classification and clarification, I divide ways of knowing into two: direct and indirect.  Religion and philosophy are indirect ways of knowing; while science and mysticism are direct ways of knowing.  Although, even before religion and philosophy, there is the realm of myth – which is already a oneness of soul, mind and world.

Myth 

Before there was religion there was myth.  Myth is story; raw pure meaning deep within the psyche.  Myth is open ended.  The stories can be told over and over – always subject to change and elaboration.  Myth is best spoken.  Sooner or later some myths are frozen in time, and turned into religion.

Religion

Religion conserves what is of value among a group of people. It speaks a language that is not strictly verbal, not strictly logical.  Yet, it limits the experience to a predefined context for what is truth.  So, religion has a closed character. Religion, like science and philosophy, gives us a picture "of the way things are"; that picture, however, is assumed to be already entirely correct and final and not easily subject to revision.  This gives religion a high quality of certainty which is a very positive virtue.  But, also gives religion a dogmatic inflexibility that at times can be very difficult from social and personal and knowledge perspectives. Philosophy, however, has more openness about it.  

Philosophy

Philosophy is indirect knowing because it relies so much on the play of words and symbols.  In the end, philosophy degenerates into a play of words and analysis and logic.  And we no longer are sure where reality resides; the reality becomes the words themselves.

Science

The liberating wonder that is called science – which is a fairly new phenomenon in the history of the world's – has the ability to keep going back to reality, to look at it directly, to verify theories and models.  Science studies the universe, material matter, living forms, psychology, and just about anything.  Science when it is real science is open-ended, involved in a feedback loop with reality.  In this way, science is very similar to mysticism.  It is not that difficult to see similarities between science and mysticism; but, we can see the possibility of a set of conflicts between science and religion.

Mysticism 

Mysticism is the movement, the effort, toward direct knowledge of what "is".  This occurs through grace via various forms of meditation practices.  It can be intuitions about what is; or, cosmic consciousness experiences – in which one senses direct knowing.  It's important to realize that mysticism is not airy fairy, while not logical.  The context of mysticism is very much like that of physics.  Those who practice it in the context of ancient esoteric traditions are constantly examining and testing the quality of their consciousness and realizations against a reality.  Just like physicists who go look at the creation directly and come back and construct theories and descriptions.  Mystics try to do the same.  Even though in most cases what the experience of reality is, is not something which can be said in words.  Indeed the mystical experience is not really an experience at all, in the sense of that the knowledge derived from it may not have the quality of something perceived directly by the sense organs.  But it's beyond the senses and is therefore transcendental.

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