Inner knowing is no better than holding a religious belief
Posted: 02 May 2012
Belief and faith used to be held in quite high esteem, then came along science, reason and the rationalists. Nowadays belief and faith are often seen in a lesser light, almost synonymous for some to superstition, gullibility and irrationality. Religion is a bit stuck with the belief/faith thing and so it too struggles for credibility.
However, the new religions of the New Age movement have had an opportunity to do something about that. They can dispense with the terms belief and faith altogether. Instead they have adopted terms such as 'inner knowing' (clever use of 'knowing' there to give it an appearance of rationality and divorce itself from belief), recognition, intuition, resonance, deep inner truths, a truth that lies beyond the intellect and comes from the purity of the heart.
But, in essence, it is still just belief and has all the same problems, limitations and pitfalls. One group of believers (or 'inner knowers') will have a belief (a knowing) about something and will respond to people who disagree with them by advising them to 'go within and listen deeply to their hearts' where they will discover the truth. The problem is that another group of believers will have arrived at a completely different truth and respond to critics in exactly the same way.
In conclusion, your inner knowings are beliefs and they will contradict the inner knowings and beliefs of others. Don't confuse a belief or an inner knowing with an absolute truth. Don't think your beliefs or inner knowings are better than others, that is the old game of 'my religion is the one true religion' playing out all over again.
However, the new religions of the New Age movement have had an opportunity to do something about that. They can dispense with the terms belief and faith altogether. Instead they have adopted terms such as 'inner knowing' (clever use of 'knowing' there to give it an appearance of rationality and divorce itself from belief), recognition, intuition, resonance, deep inner truths, a truth that lies beyond the intellect and comes from the purity of the heart.
But, in essence, it is still just belief and has all the same problems, limitations and pitfalls. One group of believers (or 'inner knowers') will have a belief (a knowing) about something and will respond to people who disagree with them by advising them to 'go within and listen deeply to their hearts' where they will discover the truth. The problem is that another group of believers will have arrived at a completely different truth and respond to critics in exactly the same way.
In conclusion, your inner knowings are beliefs and they will contradict the inner knowings and beliefs of others. Don't confuse a belief or an inner knowing with an absolute truth. Don't think your beliefs or inner knowings are better than others, that is the old game of 'my religion is the one true religion' playing out all over again.