What does no one tell you about scepticism?

What no one tells you about skepticism is that most importantly, one has to be skeptical of one’s own mind. Another thing no one tells you about skepticism is that just like there are people with blind faith, there are also blind skeptics. They blindly doubt everything, even after having heard proper explanations.

Humans have two bodies - a subtle body, which is the mind, and a gross body, which is the physical body made of the five elements - ether, air, fire, water and earth.

The mind consists of three psychic elements - mind, intelligence, and false ego. The functions of the mind are thinking, feeling, and willing. The functions of the intelligence are discriminating, remembering and doubting. The function of the false ego is to identify ourselves with the body and its culture.

The mind basically thinks like it has been trained up, during its formative years. It’s a matter of which authority is accepted by the mind.

W can either accept our own mind as authority, or we can accept somebody else's mind as authority.

Most people haven chosen the consumer culture and its values as authority. I grew up under that authority. I automatically accepted the values I grew up with. Later in life I chose Srila Prabhupada as my authority. It's simply a question of whom we choose to get our knowledge from.

In modern society, people have been been trained up to think that one's own minds is the greatest authority. That, together with what they are told by TV and Hollywood, determines their basic understanding of the world.

The reason we don't understand that the knowledge descending from the eternal disciplic succession is superior to the speculations of modern man, is because we are under the influence of the modes of passion and ignorance.

In the mode of ignorance we become completely convinced, but of the wrong things. In the mode of passion, at least, there is some intelligence in the form of doubts as to what is right or wrong. In the mode of goodness we understand things as they are, because in the mode of goodness there is acceptance of Vedic authority.

Real knowledge can only come from the Vedas. It can be tried and testet by anyone. The science of how nature works according to the three modes of material nature - goodness, passion, and ignorance, is like a map that will enable one to read what is really going on in nature and the mind.

So we should be skeptical of the values we were brought up with in the consumer culture.

Krishna says:

Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth. (Bg. 4.34)

Having obtained real knowledge from a self-realized soul, you will never fall again into such illusion, for by this knowledge you will see that all living beings are but part of the Supreme, or, in other words, that they are Mine. (Bg. 4.35)