Thread: How can Spirituality be studied Scientifically?

Why does it even matter if spirituality can be studied by science?

If spirituality includes dreams and physical measurement devices suffice for science then I am studying spirituality scientifically.

Originally Posted by Xei

The force is proportional to both the other object's mass and its mass too.

I know, this is why I don't get

Originally Posted by Xei

acceleration of an object due to a massive body is independent of its mass

The mass of a body still only ever resists it's acceleration though, unless it's accelerated by another body's gravitational field I guess... I'm being told not though lol

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Why does it even matter if spirituality can be studied by science?

What do you believe is spirituality?

Science is restricted mostly the the realm of Phenomena - whereas Spirituality consists of Qualia and/or Noumena/Numina.


Phenomena

A phenomenon (from Greek φαινόμενoν), plural phenomena or phenomenons, is any observable occurrence.[1] Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'. These are themselves sometimes understood as involving qualia.

The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with noumenon (for which he used the term Ding an sich, or "thing-in-itself"), which, in contrast to phenomena, are not directly accessible to observation. Kant was heavily influenced by Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and noumenon serve as interrelated technical terms.

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Qualia

Qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/), singular "quale" (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkwaːle]), from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to refer to subjective conscious experiences as 'raw feels'. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[1] Erwin Schrödinger, the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: "The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so." [2]

The importance of qualia in philosophy of mind comes largely from the fact that they are seen as posing a fundamental problem for materialist explanations of the mind-body problem. Much of the debate over their importance hinges on the definition of the term that is used, as various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain features of qualia.

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Noumena

The noumenon /ˈnuːmɨnɒn/ is a posited object or event that is known (if at all) without the use of the senses.[1] The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to "phenomenon", which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses. In Ancient philosophy, the noumenal realm was equated with the world of ideas known to the philosophical mind, in contrast to the phenomenal realm, which was equated with the world of sensory reality, known to the uneducated mind.[2] Modern philosophy has generally denied the possibility of knowledge independent of the senses, and Immanuel Kant gave this point of view its classical version, saying that the noumenal world may exist, but it is completely unknowable to humans. In Kantian philosophy the unknowable noumenon is often linked to the unknowable "thing-in-itself" (Ding an sich), although how to characterize the nature of the relationship is a question yet open to some controversy.

Noumenon does not refer to "numinous", a term coined by Rudolf Otto who, though well versed in Kant, drew the term from the Latin word numen which means deity, divine will or divine presence; it is unknown, however, if the ancient Latinate etymology of numen itself is not of Greek origin.

Pre-Kantian usage

Platonic Ideas and Forms are noumena, and phenomena are things displaying themselves to the senses [...] that noumena and the noumenal world are objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values is Plato's principal legacy to philosophy.
—The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

Platonic Ideas and Forms are noumena, and phenomena are things displaying themselves to the senses [...] that noumena and the noumenal world are objects of the highest knowledge, truths, and values is Plato's principal legacy to philosophy.
—The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

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Numina

Numinous (pronounced /ˈnjuːmɨnəs/) is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity. The word was popularized in the early twentieth century by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential book Das Heilige (1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923). According to Otto the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans,[citation needed] the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a Holy other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and/or the transcendent.

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Are you sure you didn't get that backwards..?

Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

The mass of a body still only ever resists it's acceleration though, unless it's accelerated by another body's gravitational field I guess... I'm being told not though lol

Not really sure what you mean. You've got some large object with mass, and then another one which you're dropping. If you double the mass of the one you're dropping, this doubles the force applied to it, but also means that it requires double the force to accelerate it by the same amount, so the acceleration (and the entire motion) is unchanged.

The more intuitive way to think of it is to remember that objects are just systems of particles, all of which are affected by gravity. So say you have two identical objects. First you drop them next to each other. Then you glue them together and drop them. Clearly nothing will change the second time; it'll fall just as fast as if there were no glue.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Science is restricted mostly the the realm of Phenomena - whereas Spirituality consists of Qualia and/or Noumena/Numina.


Phenomena

Source

Qualia

Source


Noumena

Source

Numina

Source

Finally we're getting somewhere.

My question is what limits the scientific method to phenomena other than our own lack of imagination? If you describe a pain in your head, I say "Hey I know that, I call it a head-ache," and bam we have our first consensus of a qualia. Typically in the world of science (until drug companies got in the way) someone would get an idea, they talk about this idea to see if it's logically sound. Then they run experiments, talk to more groups, refine their idea against criticism and discovery and the consensus continues to spread throughout the scientific community. Why can't this happen with qualia or even numina? You may not be able to conduct experiments that validate theories to the extent harsh enough to convince a cynic but to me the esoteric world is also a natural world that follows natural laws, just less of them. If we start forming consensus about it we can start figuring out what those laws are.

I would think the main problem would be the subjectivity of the experiences.

I can say I have a headache and describe it to somebody, who might actually have a different kind of headache - maybe mine is sinus and theirs is migraine - and unless I explain it extremely clearly and in great detail and the other person understands my explanation completely and exactly the way I meant it, it would be too easy for us to conclude that we're experiencing the same feeling. Then when we talk about a "headache" I have my idea of what it means and they have theirs.

Being able to talk about it in great depth and really kick it back and forth the way people can do on forums like this helps - I've been learning a lot about various subjective experiences such as inner voices relating to Schizophrenia and Auditory Hypnagogia this way, but I still can't be entirely certain I really hear the same thing other people do who are responding. Plus even after much lengthy discussion, if you and I come to the conclusion that we fully understand the experience we've been talking about and can now discuss it almost objectively, new people will enter the conversation and will have to spend a long time getting up to speed on it and might not understand certain things the same way we do.

And as with any time you're dealing with purely subjective things - you have to realize there are many factors that can confuse the issue of communication.

Some people might just misunderstand certian things but not realize it, some people might actually not experience quite the same thing as you do, but you might THINK it's the same because your language doesn't quite allow for close enough distinctions to be made - some people might even be lying for whatever reasons.

For these reasons, science, which is based on observable phenomena, refuses to look into anything completely subjective.

I know you're no longer addressing that, but I wanted to also point out - since the results cannot really be proven in a lab or through experiments, even if your group does make progress in understanding subjective things you'll have a very hard time making anyone pay any attention. People now are used to believing what can be repeatably demonstrate through experimentation, and studies into the subjective realm are usually considered "crackpot" or highly suspect at least.

Of course, this is not to say that such progress can't be made - I think it could - I'm just pointing out some pf the hurdles it would face.

It just occurred to me - what you're talking about is basically the exact same thing WakingNomad talks about - the difficulties with getting science to pay any attention to Shared Dreaming. Read up on what he says about that (you probably have). At least that will serve as a good starting point.

Originally Posted by Xei

Are you sure you didn't get that backwards..?

Not really sure what you mean.

The mass of a body still only ever resists it's acceleration though,
a=F/m

unless it's accelerated by another body's gravitational field I guess...

Originally Posted by Xei

The force is proportional to both the other object's mass and its mass too.

I'm being told not though lol

Originally Posted by Xei

acceleration of an object due to a massive body is independent of its mass

Originally Posted by Xei

You've got some large object with mass, and then another one which you're dropping. If you double the mass of the one you're dropping, this doubles the force applied to it, but also means that it requires double the force to accelerate it by the same amount, so the acceleration (and the entire motion) is unchanged.

According to general relativity, gravity is an inertial force, not an interaction force, mass does not resist it. The stronger the warping between two objects, the stronger the inertial force, mass does not balance anything out.

Originally Posted by Xei

The more intuitive way to think of it is to remember that objects are just systems of particles, all of which are affected by gravity. So say you have two identical objects. First you drop them next to each other. Then you glue them together and drop them. Clearly nothing will change the second time; it'll fall just as fast as if there were no glue.

Sure two identical objects would fall at the same rate, but my point is that it's hard to imagine two objects with two different space-time warping contributions would fall at the same rate if the inertial force of gravity is independent of mass. I'm not interested in treating the objects with less mass as idealized "test particles" that have no effect on gravity because I'm interested in reality lol

See... ^^THIS is what happens when you try to get scientists to talk about subjective phenomenae...

I don't think it's completely subjective. It's like colors, we may subjectively be seeing completely different colors when we look at red, but because we can form a consensus that two red things are the same color, we can form an objective opinion limited to the consensus of the people that can relate to the experience subjectively.

This may seem unscientific but the heart of all ideas agreed upon by scientists are based on nothing more than consensus of subjective experience, in one way or another. Some sciences are simply more verifiable than others thus more valuable than others. less verifiable science means less reliability, it doesn't mean its not Science.

If it is not science, then please rethink your definition of science to catch up with the 21st century. Science is a means to understand everything free of subjective bias. It's that simple. Anything in which we can remove subjective bias is therefore open to scientific study.

Subjective Bias is removed from the study of Spirituality by finding common archetypes and dependably reoccurring and describable qualia. An example we could start on for this is Synchronicity. I for one have been utterly convinced by my subjective experiences that Synchronicity is a real phenomenon. I have spoken to many who agree. I am not even on the fence about the nature of coincidence. My opinion is almost totally satisfied resting on the idea that in life, there is a mysterious force influencing events in our world. It may be a sort of physical law that we have not discovered similar to complexity or emergence, but there is obviously more depth to the way the universe works than what we think on the subject.

Basically there is no line between science and not science, there is only a spectrum from hard science (very concretely verifiable) and soft science (less concretely verifiable). Nothing falls out of the realm of science but some things in life are a very soft science.

Science just attempts to represent the subjective symbolically.

Are we looking for labels?

Having a consensus about what things are in spirituality has already been done, but it just cannot be called scientific because it was not first found through methods and conclusions, it was reported experientially and then deduced from reports.

It's simply objectifying something. Science cannot truly "study" spirituality because it is exactly that which is not objectified and tangible. You cannot prove qualia in its intrinsic form, you can only objectify or prove it conceptually, like everything else.

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Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I don't think it's completely subjective. It's like colors, we may subjectively be seeing completely different colors when we look at red, but because we can form a consensus that two red things are the same color, we can form an objective opinion limited to the consensus of the people that can relate to the experience subjectively.

Sorry, but what is 'red'? It's the concept of red that is consensus, not the color red itself. The concept is applied to red via objectification, but it can also be undone and forgotten, and nothing about 'red' would change. Science cannot study it, but it doesn't require study.

Science is a means to understand everything free of subjective bias. It's that simple. Anything in which we can remove subjective bias is therefore open to scientific study.

The means to understand the world objectively (science) is not equal to "free of subjective bias" because subjectivity is inseparable from even an objective world, as you can deduct from your first paragraph. If something is subjective, it cannot be entirely understood objectively because of what it is. It was never an object to begin with; if it was, it was a distraction. The point where objective and subjective domains meet and are one and the same is the point where science is meaningless.

Subjective Bias is removed from the study of Spirituality by finding common archetypes and dependably reoccurring and describable qualia. An example we could start on for this is Synchronicity. I for one have been utterly convinced by my subjective experiences that Synchronicity is a real phenomenon. I have spoken to many who agree. I am not even on the fence about the nature of coincidence. My opinion is almost totally satisfied resting on the idea that in life, there is a mysterious force influencing events in our world. It may be a sort of physical law that we have not discovered similar to complexity or emergence, but there is obviously more depth to the way the universe works than what we think on the subject.

But it's not subjective bias, it IS subjective. That's why you cannot arrive at it via the scientific method and expect everybody to know it; that's why it isn't necessarily scientific. There is no method for it because it is non-linear. If you haven't experienced it, science cannot prove it to you by the same margin of knowing it.

If we had to describe a colour red to a blind person, how many different explanations would we get? This is same as the headache example. If you have ever filled one of those medical forms where they ask you to describe the pain you are feeling ( you run to that kind of forms sometimes around here ) there are like 50 different descriptions for the pain.

Just came to my mind about subjectivity.

I think "spirituality" is people's INTERPRETATION of subjective experiences. You can study the subjective experiences just fine. However, what people decide said experience is, well... that's interpretation, and there's no real good reason to study that aspect scientifically.

I understand what you're saying really, but through study of subjective experience over time we can still pick out commonalities and attempt to piece them together into a rational, reliable method. An archetype exists to lay comparative cohesion between multiple subjective versions of the same thing.

What I'm looking to essentially is value, whether or not people think subjective experience is outside the realm of science.

Psychological illnesses are as unique as snowflakes, especially ones like schizophrenia. Umbrella terms are used to describe everything that falls into the scope of these unique syndromes so they could be treated in a reliable way. How do you find reliable treatment? You utilize the scientific method. Whether or not psychology is hard science, the findings of this research is valuable to society. So the question is what kind of rational and dependable conclusions can be drawn from esoteric studies? Jung uses archetypes to describe commonalities about the different impulses that make up our personality. We can also use the term Archetype to describe commonalities that exist pre/post mortality. For instance, though over all near death experiences are infrequent, they do not distinguish between religion. Hindus see Krishna, Christians see Jesus, Non-religious see an unrecognizable being of light they describe as full of love and compassion. Although near-death experiences are a rare phenomenon and even when people have them there still aren't enough commonalities to point out anything substantial at first glance, certain commonalities stick out. When people drift around but tend to group up around certain points, these are called trends. These trends can also be called icons or archetypes. In social science (also essentially the study of phenomenon through commonalities in subjective experience) these trends can be fashion, politics and what have you.

Think about it like a Casino. Obviously there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but casinos stay in business because their games set up a trend in their favor. Just because there are some big winners does not mean the casino owner quits the game, he's looking at the long-term effects of playing his games.

You can also look at dream studies to see how this is applicable to spirituality. A dream guide is a commonality. It's not experienced by everyone but the statistics the casinos are betting on is that you will see a dream guide. If you don't see one too bad, if you do, the casinos are betting that it will be someone you don't recognize most of the time because that's what the commonality is.

The concept of spirituality will always likely be outside of the known portions of science. If science shows that something is true, whatever "spirituality" is will likely fall outside of what is defined as "scientific."

Some things will always remain outside of the knowledge of science, and therefore, be left to spirituality/religion/nonbelief.

Omnis Dei, it looks like you have answered your own question!


Like I said, it has already been done. But what we end up with is probably the most abstract concepts that we can deal with on earth. Because they're so abstract, while there is consensus about them (spiritual people will understand), there is still much potential dispute across the spectrum of scientific interpretation because science has little to hang onto in those realms. It's not something in everyday science that can be studied to the extent of proof, so scientists are not in a hurry to transit into the new paradigm that has been illustrated because it is not comprehensible with traditional methods.

Rare do I hear of scientists that can accept that Love is not an emotion, or that God and his Creation can exist simultaneously to evolution. Even something as simple as God having many names is not typically known. It may be rational that forgiveness brings peace, but still, anybody living solely in a rational world has yet to understand why forgiveness is destined to set the world free. There are studies, but they do not meet the truth as scientifically as most would like.

The paradigm difference is even described by yourself; a significant problem it presents is essentially this:

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

The observer is not really definable as it lacks all definitive qualities since it cannot observe itself to discover its own attributes.

The same really applies in this situation, because anybody familiar with meditation can see the stunning relevance of this. Definition and science really work together. But while we can be abstract and invent words and definitions still, in the end we can also say that what they are about is actually what is wordless and undefinable. It's a paradox; it's a paradigm limit.

If you're only talking about studying spiritual practices/meditation, revelations, etc. I don't see the point of it, because a) again, those have already been extensively documented although not exclusively scientifically (regardless of whether the literature is "good"), and b) because it is impossible to understand those truths fully without witnessing them for oneself, and therefore study cannot achieve this; i.e. cannot be studied scientifically.

On a different note, maybe this will give you insight. I'm not sure if you've seen it before, but it is a very big thing (pun intended): Dr Thomas Campbell - My Big TOE (1 of 18) - YouTube

Did you read the above post? If you're so attached to what is science and what isn't, then fine don't use the word science.

The word here, for me, is VALUE

Game Theory is about subjective experience, a lot of game theory is about something very simple and very subjective: how people respond to you. This is not something you can study as concretely as biology, but it's incredibly valuable. Game theory is not necessarily about rules you have to follow, it's about rules that put the odds in your favor. "Most people will react thusly." It's a science of linking generalizations in a world as unique for the perceiver as the spirit world, social dynamics.

Why are you marrying the observer with spirituality? That point has to do with the observer itself, not with what the observer can see about spirituality. So no I didn't answer my own question, I didn't even come close. To me, the greatest value that can be ascertained from spirituality is one that includes a scientific approach of finding commonalities between subjective experiences rather than entrusting in the words of gurus or one's own personal experiences. From my stand-point, just like any other skeptic, that simply has no fucking value compared to the former.

Besides, the spirit world has plenty of observable attributes. The spirit world is something the observer can see.

When we interview people who've had near-death experiences to find commonalities, this is a study of spirituality, but not a study of the observer.

When we interview you children about their past life and look for commonalities, this is a study of spirituality, but not a study of the observer.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Besides, the spirit world has plenty of observable attributes. The spirit world is something the observer can see.

When we interview people who've had near-death experiences to find commonalities, this is a study of spirituality, but not a study of the observer.

If person A has a near-death experience, and person B takes a bunch of peyote and has the exact same hallucination, you could interview them and get basically the same answers. It's only a study of spirituality if you define "spirituality" as "an observer's interpretation of his subjective experience."

As for the commonalities between many people's experiences... It doesn't surprise me much that the experience of having your brain slowly shut down leads to similar sensory experiences. And in a culture that has common spiritual views, it's also not surprising that they are quick to label a sensory experience with something common. ("I saw the light at the end of the tunnel" etc.)

If you have ever been choked out, you surprisingly often see something related to the light and tunnel in that brief moment of unconciousness or the moment you wake up. Just a quick remark that it happens in that case too.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Did you read the above post? If you're so attached to what is science and what isn't, then fine don't use the word science.

The word here, for me, is VALUE

Game Theory is about subjective experience, a lot of game theory is about something very simple and very subjective: how people respond to you. This is not something you can study as concretely as biology, but it's incredibly valuable. Game theory is not necessarily about rules you have to follow, it's about rules that put the odds in your favor. "Most people will react thusly." It's a science of linking generalizations in a world as unique for the perceiver as the spirit world, social dynamics.

Why are you marrying the observer with spirituality? That point has to do with the observer itself, not with what the observer can see about spirituality. So no I didn't answer my own question, I didn't even come close. To me, the greatest value that can be ascertained from spirituality is one that includes a scientific approach of finding commonalities between subjective experiences rather than entrusting in the words of gurus or one's own personal experiences. From my stand-point, just like any other skeptic, that simply has no fucking value compared to the former.

Besides, the spirit world has plenty of observable attributes. The spirit world is something the observer can see.

When we interview people who've had near-death experiences to find commonalities, this is a study of spirituality, but not a study of the observer.

When we interview you children about their past life and look for commonalities, this is a study of spirituality, but not a study of the observer.

I did read your post, following from the previous. Forgive me if I'm not understanding you.

I'm pointing out what was the problem of these worldviews to begin with, which should reveal why they collide and why they don't. What I'm bringing up is the core of how science cannot fully comprehend spirituality, i.e. how it cannot be fully studied scientifically. Is looking for commonalities the best thing science can do? Perhaps this is the whole function of science, because those commonalities form a definition that we can interact with and learn from. But spirituality is not all about things that are observable. There is a limit, that is what I have been saying. If we become better at our imagination (as you mention), the same problem is just blown up with prettier detail.

There are many things that can fit under the umbrella term "spirituality". I have acknowledged that we can study them, I'm not exactly disagreeing with your points. But at the same time, I don't think you're really asking for anything new. If you're talking about value, then why? I don't quite understand what you mean by that. Science is useful, no doubt, but it will not cover all the ground.

The ground that is not covered is the intrinsic value that is to do with "the observer", and that is already married to genuine spirituality, otherwise meditation would be meaningless. Without that, there is potential mix ups.

Replicon makes a good point that there are parallels between a lot of experiences that are still quite different. It's because the context and meaning is different. But while legitimate spiritual experiences are not caused by physical imbalances or drugs, they are not due to tangible means and therefore those means cannot be defined explicitly. So what good is that? It's sort of controversial if misunderstood. Somebody says "This person's enlightened..." another man interrupts, "no no no, his brain's just shut down". How do you tell the difference? Well skeptics and typical rational scientists can't, because they're spiritually naive. By the same token, science is generally naive when it comes to consciousness studies. The two worlds are really inseparable. The aforementioned man whom presents us with science has not done it without his own experience, and his work will become only fully understood when we become part of it.

Apart from that, I'm not too confident that a scientific study is going to be as helpful as doing spiritual "research" and taking an intuitive stride with the information that already exists everywhere. A commonality is that people will feel at peace even in the same vicinity of a spiritually evolved person, but there is no causality or rarely an explanation for it that is going to be meaningful the majority of people unless they are intuitive, or if it has already happened to them personally. You can't teach those things.

If you think I still don't get it, I'd like you to elaborate on why this is so unique.

When you are able to observe the functions within your own mind and talk about them to other people the observer is no longer married with the mind because it's capable of observing it.

If it's in perception, it's not the observer (technically I see the observer married with the observed in a different way but one step at a time)

We are capable of perceiving things before and after death, these are being documented and studied vigorously and will continue to show us data.

I do not trust people to be "awakened." I do not know what that term means, there are plenty of people with good advice and the teacher/student method has some value to it. But time erodes tradition, and their value becomes lost. Meanwhile, time only improves scientific endeavors as it continues to prove and reprove ideas that are valuable while tearing invaluable ideas apart. Imagine, instead of some guru dispensing infallible wisdom you could go to a school of spirituality where scholars converse over the relationships between their subjective experiences?

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

When you are able to observe the functions within your own mind and talk about them to other people the observer is no longer married with the mind because it's capable of observing it.

Observing functions of the mind is therefore only half the story, is it not? Are you saying that "spirituality" = "observing mind functions"? For the spiritual world to become completely academic, it would have to become completely dependable by academic terms, analogous to ingredients for a dish in a recipe, right? I would have to further that analogy to counter it, by saying that the recipe will not produce exact results every time, in fact it is a more general and less strict instruction. And so it already begins to lose value. The question then becomes what is the value over the academic scenario vs. faith-driven?

I do not trust people to be "awakened." I do not know what that term means, there are plenty of people with good advice and the teacher/student method has some value to it. But time erodes tradition, and their value becomes lost. Meanwhile, time only improves scientific endeavors as it continues to prove and reprove ideas that are valuable while tearing invaluable ideas apart. Imagine, instead of some guru dispensing infallible wisdom you could go to a school of spirituality where scholars converse over the relationships between their subjective experiences?

If teachings are passed down through the ages, as they have, then what value has been lost? Tradition may have eroded culture slightly, but not exactly in terms of wisdom. The wisdom is what never changes. Sharing that wisdom and refining it with each other's experience allows it to be passed down as it has been already. I don't see how that is exactly scientific. If it was science, then the world you ask for must already exist... Tricky definition of science, I suppose, because few would appear satisfied with it. My summary of why that is, would point towards faith being an "irrational" spiritual requirement.

And getting rid of the "awakened guru" does not solve your problem either. It actually is not absolutely necessary to have an awakened guru for one to grow spiritually, because an "unawakened" teacher can still fulfill his function and teach. It simply has not been confirmed in his awareness to a greater extent, thus the experience he shares is not as powerful. But the awakened guru is not necessary for the teaching itself, which is secondary.

However, in the original sense, it would be extremely rare to be interested in spiritual growth without ultimately drawing influence from one awakened "guru"/"avatar" or another. If you do not trust the meaning of "awakened", then essentially you will never trust it, because were you to believe it was false, then what purpose is there at all? You would not trust Jesus for example. What on earth are you going to do with a bunch of "spiritual scholars" without faith in what he said? You're most likely going to waste time and take eons to sort out the ignorance, if at all.