Why believe in Spiritual Texts?

What relevance do they have today?

This article is written with the ancient texts of India in mind. The primary Sanskrit word describing authorised spiritual literature is ‘shastra’ - revered age-old writings handed down from generation to generation over millennia. Although written with shastra in mind, the basic point can be applied to all world faiths.

Why have faith in ancient texts? Who writes them and why? What relevance do they have today? Surely they are behind the times in this day and age?

I will use a paragraph to emphasise this point. A tiny acorn becomes a great oak tree because it was designed to do so. Can you buy a little plastic and metal thing in the shops, throw it in the back garden as a young lad, and see a great oak in fifty years? Even if it is within the realms of possibility that one day a scientist might come up with some contraption that mimics a seed growing into a tree-like thing (although I doubt it!) the point is, such a process would take immense intelligence and design. Considerable cerebral effort. Where there is a design, there’s a designer. The world in front of us is the product of super-intelligence. The cause of this intelligence is who we refer to as ‘God’ in English.

The next point is:
Can this Being communicate with us?

On the shores of Lough Erne I sometimes loudly call out the mantra
Go ’rong ’gah so that someone ½ km away on Inisrath Island can hear me. Occasionally I email someone in Australia or phone someone in Canada. I talk to people everyday and I like writing. I can communicate. We can all communicate with people. It’s not so difficult.

Is it really surprising to hear that the immensely intelligent being, referred to as ‘God’ in the English language, can communicate with people? Even worms squirming about on excrement can communicate with each other – male and female will make contact to mate. So we think the original designer of the cosmic manifestation can’t get some message across?

The explanation given by shastra for our phenomenal oversight is the nature of the material world itself. This world is the place where we exercise our free-will in attempting to forget the supreme being, whose name is referred to as ‘Krishna’, ‘Vishnu’, ‘Govinda’ and others. The world of matter provides an environment by which we can detach ourselves from our original loving relationship with Krishna. Why did we take this path? By our choice, we turned away from Krishna and our wondering what other fun we can have here in this world. It is said that our constitutional position was to be in a loving service relationship with Krishna, but we got a little tired of the fact that Krishna is the primeval and greatest being, and that we’re not as big as him. Of course, as soon as this was our viewpoint then we take our first birth in the world of matter. Here we have the opportunity to forget Krishna by the nature of this world, and that is what we do, and we do it quite well! Therefore it is not surprising that we are only now trying to understand that Krishna has the ability to communicate.

A primary communication tool utilized by Krishna is shastra, the sacred texts. If one accepts:

(1) There is a supreme being
and
(2) He or she can communicate
then shastra begins to have relevance.

“Okay, what you’ve said so far makes sense, but what if someone changes the original message of Krishna; or Jesus, or Buddha, or anyone else”

Yes, this being the temporary world of matter by its nature there are people who don’t understand, who cheat, and who ignorantly abuse religious texts in their own warped ways. To guard against corruption we have to exercise our personal integrity. Where is the spiritual person or persons that are developing love of God by personal practise. What are their qualities? How do they live up to the ideals mentioned in shastra. This we have to investigate for ourselves. Shastra and spiritual culture have been handed down from generation to generation from guru to disciple. To understand and really feel this point for ourselves we need to get a little involved at this stage. If we maintain an ‘academic’ and distant stance looking in from the outside and not really practise the recommended meditation and procedure we won’t understand. Just like if we go to university, but only sit on the step outside drinking coffee, the likelihood is we won’t learn much.

___________________________________________________________

written by Tim McEvitt who, as a monk, studied spiritual texts for 8 years on the lake isle of Inisrath.