"Can a mortal being with his limited consciousness have an insight into a field without its ken? No; as long as he relies solely upon his intellectual faculty, he is forever barred from so doing. For the intellect is really superficial and cannot penetrate through spatial and temporal relations, nor can she free herself from the bondage of logical sequence.; and therefore the inner life of our being us alogether unknown to the intellect. We cannot be said to know an object thoroughly by merely becoming familiar with all its attributes, qualities, potentialities, and what not. All these can be understood through the senses and the reasoning faculty. There yet remains a certain feature of the object, the knowledge of which alone completes the understanding of it. Philosophy and science have done a great deal for the advancement of our knowledge of the universe, and there is a fair prospect of further service to this end. But they are constitutionally incapable of giving rest, bliss, joy, and faith to the a troubled spirit; for they do not provide us with a complete knowledge of existence, and are unable to lay bare the secrets of life. What they teach concerns the shell and husk of reality. In order to satisfy fully our religious yearnings we must not stop short at this; we must appeal to a different faculty, which will reveal to us the inmost life of the universe.
Fortunately, we are possession of this peculiar faculty which might be called the religious sense, and through the exercise of which we come to realize the significance of our existence. How unbearable life would be, if we were not allowed to have this religious faculty and yet we had to raise those spirit-harassing questions which could not be solved by logic!
The faculty seems to have all the essential characteristics of the feeling. It is intuitive and does not analyze; it is direct and refuses a medium of any form. It allows no argument, it merely states, and its statement is absolute. What it says "yes," the affirmation has such a convincing force as to remove all doubts, and even skeptically disposed intellectual minds have to admit it as a fact and not a whim. It speaks as one with authority. True, it has only a subjective value, which, however, is just as ultimate and actual as sense-perception. Being immediate, there is no other way to test its validity than that each experience it personally, individually, and inwardly. The sun is risen on the horizon and all that have eyes see it and harbor not the shadow of a doubt as to its presence there. The inner sense which I have called religious faculty makes us feel the inmost life that is running through every vein and every artery of nature; and we are completely free of skepticism, unrest, dissatisfaction, and vexation of spirit. We never try to raise a doubr about the true nature of the feeling and ask ourselves whether it is merely a phenomenon of mental aberration or due to a calenture of the brain. We simply feel, and nothing more or less is to be asserted or denied. And this is what constitutes spiritual enlightenment."
- From "Spiritual Enlightenment" in Zen for Americans - Writings by Zen Master Soyen Shaku
Fortunately, we are possession of this peculiar faculty which might be called the religious sense, and through the exercise of which we come to realize the significance of our existence. How unbearable life would be, if we were not allowed to have this religious faculty and yet we had to raise those spirit-harassing questions which could not be solved by logic!
The faculty seems to have all the essential characteristics of the feeling. It is intuitive and does not analyze; it is direct and refuses a medium of any form. It allows no argument, it merely states, and its statement is absolute. What it says "yes," the affirmation has such a convincing force as to remove all doubts, and even skeptically disposed intellectual minds have to admit it as a fact and not a whim. It speaks as one with authority. True, it has only a subjective value, which, however, is just as ultimate and actual as sense-perception. Being immediate, there is no other way to test its validity than that each experience it personally, individually, and inwardly. The sun is risen on the horizon and all that have eyes see it and harbor not the shadow of a doubt as to its presence there. The inner sense which I have called religious faculty makes us feel the inmost life that is running through every vein and every artery of nature; and we are completely free of skepticism, unrest, dissatisfaction, and vexation of spirit. We never try to raise a doubr about the true nature of the feeling and ask ourselves whether it is merely a phenomenon of mental aberration or due to a calenture of the brain. We simply feel, and nothing more or less is to be asserted or denied. And this is what constitutes spiritual enlightenment."
- From "Spiritual Enlightenment" in Zen for Americans - Writings by Zen Master Soyen Shaku
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