History is witness to the fact that society has tortured time and again all those people who wanted to move on a path that challenges the social belief system. Buddha realized what truth is and just wanted to tell the same to everybody around. Buddha was tortured by constant abuse and insults from different people. Many people conspired against him by levying all types of allegations against him. Meera loved Krishna and considered him her husband. Her own family members tried to kill her. Jesus was crucified because he defied widely prevalent social norms. Similar was the fate of Socrates, who was executed by being forced to drink poison. Since time immemorial, all the people who defy social norms have met a similar fate.
Why do societies across the globe behave so aggressively when it comes to treating the people who defy social norms? People come together to form a society for a common purpose. This purpose may vary from handling insecurities to common exploration. When insecure people come together to form a society, they develop a common belief system that gives them some sort of security. On the other hand, when secure people come together to form a society, they do so for common exploration.
In the first type of society, due to underlying insecurities in each member of the society, each individual is very insecure; their belief system works as a glue to society. That's why whenever anybody tries to challenge that belief system, each and every member of society feels insecure and becomes aggressive. For example, society at the time of Buddha believed in a certain concept of God. Buddha realized "nothingness" and also the fact that different forms of God are just creations of the human mind. When he talked about his realizations, people who believed in a certain concept of God felt insecure and attacked him. Similarly, for the society where Meera lived, the concept of marriage was sacrosanct. Women were supposed to have only one husband and be completely faithful to their husbands, and that's why society could not digest that Meera could love Krishna as her husband. How can a woman think beyond her husband?
Insecure societies thrive on the concept of punishment and fear. They would like to punish brutally any and everybody who defies the belief system that is central to their existence, so that nobody dares to even think of defying it. If many people defy these core belief systems, the entire existence of society would be at risk. That's why society, as a whole, becomes quite aggressive in dealing with these people. Individually, each member of the society is feeling insecure, and that's why society is the only "secure space," and that's why any and every threat to the core belief systems of the society has to be eliminated and uprooted. The one who can see through this and challenge the core belief systems has to suffer. Nobody in society is bothered about the truth.
An insecure mind cannot appreciate reality because all of its attention is focused on becoming secure. People develop " self-proclaimed and socially recognised intelligence" by developing logic and reason, but this logic is merely utilized by their rational brains to seek more and more security. The larger the house you build on a shaky foundation, the more dangerous it becomes. That's why these intelligent individuals often feel very unstable and avoid discussions about real issues. They merely create theories in their minds about the meaning of life, subscribe to organizations, or join societies that support their belief systems. "Mass confirmation" does not turn a lie into truth. Entire humanity believed the Earth was flat a few centuries ago, and today everyone knows the truth. That belief stunted humanity's growth for a long time. We may also hinder our growth by erecting firewalls of our blind beliefs. A seed may feel comfortable inside its shell, but the truth is that at some point, it must dare to enter the soil, confront the darkness within, make efforts to break free from the shell, and only then can it grow into a tree. We cannot expect society to support this journey because it has embraced its blind belief systems to manage its insecurities.
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