How do we decide what spiritual truth/teaching to believe in?

 How do we decide what spiritual truth/teaching to believe in?
For an intellectual student who is new to spirituality/meta-physics/religion, it is always a challenge as to how he can come to accept/believe in teachings that he is not able to yet comprehend or experience himself. While faith is advocated by the masters, how can the student be sure that in the name of faith he is not being brainwashed?

From time to time we hear of “Godmen” misleading and exploiting innocent, unwary people with the promise of some spiritual growth or material prosperity. Then there are other people who have been introduced to religions/philosophies that are deep rooted in fear, which do not give any satisfactory logical explanations behind the spiritual practices involved. Some students of these faiths who survived many years of “brainwashing” finally come to realize the falsities of their beliefs and thus come to highly resent the system they were in, to the extent that they come to associate a negative connotation with any spiritual practice, or even using the word “God”. Clearly having “blind faith” in some system did not help these people.

On the other hand, there are “intellectuals” who will not believe in anything unless it is proved scientifically. With these people, anything that cannot be seen or heard or touched or smelt or tasted is instantly rejected as false. Some of these "intellectuals" judge others following religious or spiritual practices as “emotional fools” who cannot think for themselves. Anything that cannot be explained in physical terms is rejected outright, and anything non-scientific is dealt with in a cynical manner. Due to a closed mind, these people never grow to a level where they come to appreciate and experience higher truths that are beyond the limitations of science at the moment.

Clearly both approaches come with some limitations as well as risks. So, which of the two approaches should one follow? Should we be blindly accepting of the spiritual teachers or be very closed minded?

Here is a venn diagram representing truths and untruths, which can help to understand the problem in a visual way.
• The orange circle represents all truths (T)
• The red circle represents scientific truths (S)
• Anything that is outside of the orange circle (shaded white) is an untruth (U)

What we observe from the diagram is that:
1. Scientific truth (Red circle), is a subset of total truths (Orange circle) As science advances, the red circle will expand more and more into the orange circle.
2. Due to the nature of science that is limited to the physical, it may not be possible for non-physical truths that are included in spirituality/meta-physics to ever become part of science.
3. Just because something is not yet proved scientifically, it does not mean it is not true. Truth is truth, and is beyond science, and thus rejecting something in the orange circle because it does not fall under the red circle is very limiting and illogical.
4. Many non-scientific metaphysical truths require us to grow beyond our current physical and mental limitations. If we never give it a chance with sincere faith, we will never experience it’s benefits. As saint Augustine said “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe”
5. At the same time, when we encounter something that is not scientific, we want to make sure that we are not blindly believing in it as well. We want to make sure that something that is an untruth (white background) is not something that we are blindly believing, to our own disadvantage.

Scientific truths (red circle) are proven and all of us know it for a fact. When we encounter a new truth that is beyond what science has proven today, we need to come up with a balanced way of looking at it such that we are neither being overly cynical and thus rejecting it, nor accepting something in blind faith. A healthy level of skepticism is thus a good balance between the two extreme approaches of blind faith and being cynical of what we cannot currently comprehend.

Here are some practical questions we can ask ourselves that can help us determine whether we should accept or reject a truth being taught:

1) What do other philosophies/religions say about the same truth?
Whatever is common between various spiritual practices can be safely accepted as the truth, as it it highly unlikely that hundreds of wise spiritual masters, over thousands of years, belonging to various religions/spiritual/cultural traditions can succeed in speaking the same lie.

2) Does the teaching/philosophy offer rational explanations to common doubts or does it use fear as a way to get people to act in a certain way?
If it is fear based, do not accept it. The student must be able to obtain a rational answer to his genuine doubts, which can include the explanation that certain things can only be subjectively/experientially understood, and it is not possible to prove it objectively.

3) Does the teaching agree with your reasoning?
Give the teaching a fair chance, ask all questions and get clear answers. If the reasoning does not agree with your intellect, then reject it.

As the Buddha said:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."