The Reason, in its clearest and widest operation, while unable to grasp ultimate Reality and ultimate Truth, is able to at least provide a framework for understanding of process in the physical world.
Sri Aurobindo points out that “For if there is one thing now certain it is that physical science may give clues of process, but cannot lay hold on the reality of things. That means that the physical is not the whole secret of world and existence, and that in ourselves too the body is not the whole of our being. It is then through something supraphysical in Nature and ourselves which we may call the soul, whatever the exact substance of soul may be, that we are likely to get that greater truth and subtler experience which will enlarge the narrow rigid circle traced by physical science and bring us nearer to the Reality.”
When we admit that there are supraphysical realities to the universe that cannot be directly or completely comprehended by the action of Reason, we can open to the possibilities offered by other forms of experience, for instance, spiritual experience. These experiences have an overwhelming and vivid impact on those who receive them, and they are the foundational experiences behind virtually all of the major religions throughout the world. Sri Aurobindo points out “…there is nothing to prevent us from proceeding firmly upon whatever certitudes of spiritual experience have become to us the soil of our inner growth or the pillars on our road to self-knowledge. These are soul realities. But the exact frame we shall give to that knowledge, will best be built by farther spiritual experience aided by new enlarged intuitions, confirmed in the suggestions of a wide philosophic reason and fruitfully using whatever helpful facts we may get from the physical and the psychic sciences. These are truths of soul process; their full light must come by experimental knowledge and observation of the world without us and the world within.”
Sri Aurobindo,
Sri Aurobindo Studies 