Eventually, faith must give way to conviction, for after all, faith is only faith. There are two kinds of experience—external and internal. External experience can result through the gross media. What we actually see of the gross world with our gross eyes gives us conviction of a sort, but there are occasions when even this conviction is based on incorrect analysis.
Thus, if we see a man drinking milk from a bottle under a toddy tree, we assume unconsciously that he is drinking toddy, which is incorrect. What is seen with the inner eye gives absolute conviction and can never be false. Such is the case, for example, when one sees with the inner eye that God is the Infinite Existence.
Therefore what is really needed to give eternal conviction is not mere theorizing or reasoning, or even faith, but actual (inner) experience.
Once God has been realized, there is no question of faith or even of conviction, just as there is no question of man’s needing faith to believe that he is a man. Having transcended the boundaries of faith, one finds oneself identified with the infinite and the one Self manifested everywhere.
-Listen Humanity, p185