Today, while walking in the park, I observed three groups of people. One group of old people who were busy singing the old Bollywood songs. The other group of people, some young and some old, were chanting mantras. The third one is walking and jogging in the park. Everybody is seeking one or the other thing in life. All are perfectly logical. In fact, you talk to any of them and they would be equally convinced of their life choices. Had they not been convinced, they would have been sitting in their home or would not have gotten out of bed.
Why does our logic guide us towards different things in life? Some get convinced to exploit others to gain little benefit, while some sacrifice their lives for the freedom of the nation. While somebody would kill their sibling for not being able to snatch the remote control of the television, somebody will take the responsibility for their siblings throughout their life. The most amazing thing is that everybody is equally convinced by his logic. The person who carries the relationship of marriage by giving away his freedom and the person who seeks divorce are equally convinced of their decisions. The person who does nothing for his health and the health freak are equally convinced of their decisions.
Why are so many people making quite contradictory decisions are equally convinced of their decisions? It is because intelligence has nothing to do with the purpose of life. Shakuni would be probably more intelligent than Yudhistira but his intelligence is just a tool of his strong desire to take revenge from Pandavas. Hitler was one of the most intelligent rulers of the world. His intelligence was a tool to serve his desire to be the ruler of the world. The sharper the intelligence and the more damaging the tool is to the world.
When the sharp intelligence gets the right direction, people use intelligence to find out the deepest secrets of the nature of the human psyche. Buddha used his sharp intelligence to understand the human psyche at the greatest depths and found a solution to get rid of suffering. His teachings were so insightful that they remain relevant even after thousands of years. Valmiki wrote Ramayana thousands of years ago, and the storyline inspires generations after generations despite huge changes in culture and ecosystem. Ved Vyasa wrote the Mahabharata, and even after thousands of years, probably the Mahabharata is one of the best psychoanalyses of human characters. What Kabira wrote many hundreds of years ago is completely relevant even today. Thus, the wise people have used intelligence in a very different way as compared to the greedy and fearful people.
That's why, as parents, we should focus on imparting wisdom to our kids rather than making them intelligent. Intelligent kids without wisdom have all the likelihood of moving on the lines of Shakuni and Hitler. None of us would like our kids to move that way. Wisdom doesn't have a curriculum. It can't be taught. It is a natural byproduct of awareness. It all depends upon the different dimensions of life, we are aware of. If Hitler, even for once, became aware of the pain of the human beings in the concentration camps, how would he kill so many? He just closed his eyes to the pain of jews, or he was so obsessed with his mad dream that the cries of the souls of the innocent people could never reach his ears. Why Hitler? We have so many living examples among us. Don't we see the poverty and exploitation happening everywhere? At home, at the office, in society, and everywhere around. Why do we close our eyes and turn a deaf ear to all these incidents? Because we are highly obsessed with the "limited life", we are aware of. We just focus on a "powerful chair" or a "strong position" or a beautiful "property" or the "trophy of being a good person" or "the crown of having a well knit family" and ignore the people "sweating heavily" holding that powerful chair on their shoulders, the cost of that "strong position" on our health and relationships, the stress we have to undergo to get that "beautiful property", the inauthenticities and pretentions that we live with to maintain that image of "being a god person", and the sacrifice of freedom and perpetual compromises we have to do to maintain that facade of a "well knit family".
It's easy to close our eyes to reality and difficult to stay aware. Every weak person in this world closes their eyes selectively to gain that momentary comfort. Children close their eyes to the examination to have fun with their friends, adults close their eyes to the foul relationships to get social validation, and employees close their eyes to the exploitation by the employers to avoid the fear of losing their job. We choose comforts, try to avoid fear, and in the process often choose ignorance over awareness. That's just a deferment of the sufferings. Unless we take up exercise and mindful eating, diseases are just a matter of time. Similarly, if we close our eyes to the reality of life and death to retain that comfort of stability, we will not be wise. The moment we choose awareness, we get to feel the suffering of the people around, we get to understand what we have done to the animals and plants around us, we understand the pain of the rivers and mountains, and the flora and fauna dependent on them. Our zone of awareness widens, and we become wise. Our intelligence is then guided by the well-being of the whole world rather than narrow selfish interests. Arjuna fights under the guidance of Krishna rather than Duryodhana at the command of Shakuni.
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