Skepticism - #8

This book encourages a constant attitude of skepticism towards anything asserted by gurus, sages, or philosophers.

In general, we are saying, “Don’t believe anything you are told. Find out for yourself.”

In particular, skepticism should be the automatic response to any dogmatic statement based on an appeal to authority, when asking questions is discouraged or forbidden.

If someone is pressuring you to believe something – for example, they are trying to make you scared, or coerce you into believing – then always ask yourself why they are pressuring you to believe. Why do they care if you believe or not? In general, when it comes to teaching, the use of pressure, fear, or coercion indicates there is an ulterior motive, perhaps personal gain for the teacher, which can be direct or indirect. For example, maybe they want power, money, or attention from you.

If any teaching or teacher discourages you from asking questions, that’s a very bad sign. In this book, we never say, “Trust me.” We do our best to explain the rationale for every claim we make. We don’t pressure you to believe what we say.

When questions are not allowed, dogma is almost always at play. And when dogma enters the picture, truth becomes secondary and power becomes the primary aim.

When it comes to a teaching, the encouragement not to ask questions usually hides something – and is suspicious. If you are encouraged not to ask questions, then all you can do is absorb dogma.

If you are reading or hearing a teaching where questioning is discouraged, that teaching is probably pure dogma. A symptom that something is just dogma can come from the way the message is presented. When questions are discouraged, there is a good chance that the teaching is purely a dogma and only designed to take power away from you.

No one should ever feel discouraged from asking questions, whether to the teacher or to themselves about any material. When studying any material, you should always ask yourself, for example, “Does this make sense?”, “What does this imply?”, “What are the practical consequences of this?”, and “Do the implications and consequences make sense?” Always question everything. Just like you should never feel discouraged to question any teacher, you should never feel discouraged to also question anything by yourself.

For this reason, the reader is encouraged to favor non-dogmatic approaches where questions are always welcome. In short, we invite the reader to maintain a critical perspective toward all assertions.

Naturally, readers are encouraged to adopt the same stance toward this book. No statement in these pages should be taken as absolute truth. Instead, a skeptical outlook is advised—one that invites questions and continuously challenges what is being said. From this perspective, readers can accept the ideas they find valid and reject those they consider false or unconvincing.

If you find claims in this book that make sense to you, make use of them. For those claims that do not make sense to you, reject them. But always do your own investigation and make up your own mind. Never allow anyone to discourage you from questioning anything.

It is also worth noting that the approaches associated with “enlightenment” differ from areas of knowledge where a broad consensus has been reached. If a mathematician explains how to calculate the area of a square, it makes little sense to be skeptical — especially since the result can be tested and verified immediately. By contrast, when it comes to enlightenment, there is little agreement — everything and its opposite has been said. This realm is best pictured as a tree with many branches: only a few are healthy, while many are not. This book represents one such healthy branch. Although there are certainly other healthy branches, the chances of straying onto a dead one are high. That’s why the approach offered in this book is clearly the better option.

Every teaching—whether from a teacher, a doctrine, or a book—serves only to guide us toward a certain understanding. Once understanding has been reached, the teaching itself no longer serves a purpose and can be set aside.

The only value of any teaching is exclusively to achieve understanding.

A teaching should never tell us what to believe. It should help us understand.

A good “teacher” is always willing to explain. If the “teacher” is not willing to explain, his understanding is weak or his teaching is just dogma designed to take power away from you.

The sole purpose of a teaching is to foster independent understanding and realization—not to encourage dogmatic belief in the teaching itself. When encountering a teaching, we should never limit ourselves to believing it or memorizing its content. Instead, we should strive for an understanding that is truly our own.

A teaching that is dogmatic by nature makes any form of understanding impossible because it does not allow for questioning and merely keeps the student attached to a rigid doctrine.

Dogma can never lead to real or “true” understanding because dogma never provides explanations. It is almost impossible to reach a real understanding without a proper explanation.

Once a teaching has been understood, the explanation is no longer needed, and the teaching itself can be set aside. For this reason, it is essential never to accept a teaching before fully understanding it, because dogmatic acceptance ultimately makes understanding impossible. Understanding arises through questioning—by allowing doubts to surface and by continually calling everything into question. A critical attitude stands in direct opposition to dogmatic acceptance.

However, if we have not truly understood a teaching, it is important to be sure we have done everything possible to understand it before setting it aside. If we still cannot understand it after having done everything possible, then it is reasonable to reject it.

Finally, remaining attached to a teaching and idolizing the teacher, doctrine, or text in question is neither sound nor necessary, and only weighs down the person who carries it.

The only thing that really matters is the understanding. Once you have reached the understanding, there is nothing else to be gained by focusing on the teaching or the teacher.