Skip to main content

A Meaningful Enquiry

 I often get surprised to meet people who are quite confident about their viewpoints and refuse to listen to the viewpoints of everybody else. You feel like breaking your head against a pillar while talking to these people. Life is like an AI engine. Whatever type of videos we watch often, the AI engine of YouTube throws more such videos into our YouTube reels. Slowly, one develops a distorted perception of reality. 

Life is also like that. When we have very strong viewpoints, we refuse to listen to the people who have a different viewpoint. Slowly, such people maintain a distance, and we get surrounded by the people who have a viewpoint similar to ours. Thus, our viewpoints get confirmed every day that viewpoint appears to us to be quite universal. Slowly, we start rejecting the other viewpoint outrightly and we become prisoners of our own viewpoints. We become quite aggressive while telling our viewpoint, as if others are fools. 

Is there any way out? Yes. Definitely, and that way out is quite simple. Start listening. The moment we start watching the videos that give a different perspective, the AI understands that our area of interest is growing, and it also starts throwing those kinds of videos. The wider the variety of videos we watch, the wider the variety of suggestions thrown by the AI. Similarly, the moment we start listening to the viewpoints of people who think differently from us, our brain develops receptivity, and they start making sense to us. The next time we listen to them, they make more and more sense to us, since our framework of life has widened. 

There is a saying that "an empty vessel makes more noise". That's what I have experienced in life. Shallow people who have very limited exposure and experience of life are quite certain of "rights" and "wrongs". Unfortunately, they keep repeating these divisions in their minds and hardly allow any space for fresh air to enter. That's why it's very difficult to have any dialogue with them. In social interactions, we often encounter such people since they are the ones who reach high positions due to their strong convictions. Probably that's why social interactions are often quite noisy. Probably that's why saints in all ages used to stay away from that noisy society. Meaningful dialogue is possible only when everybody participating in the dialogue comes with curiosity and is open to listening. This world seems to me a happy marriage between the preachers and the followers, leaving hardly any scope for a meaningful enquiry. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Field of Awareness

 I presented a paper on Vipassana long back at Delhi University, and at that time, a professor there asked me a question: "Who realises the temporality of the sensations when we practice Vipassana: the mind or something else?" That question stayed with me. I told him about my experience in Estonia. Once, I went on an office tour in Estonia, where it was extremely cold at around -15 degrees. I walked outdoors for quite a long time and developed severe stomach pain. With no medicines available to me and no doctor to visit, I sat in Vipassana and began observing sensations. After about an hour of observation, the pain disappeared. I told him that I don't know whether that was a realisation of the mind or something else, but the same brain that experienced pain some time back had no pain after some time.  The question is who was feeling the pain and where that pain disappeared after observation. When we sit in Vipassana, our minds are full of so many thoughts. Usually, our m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Do we love anybody?

Are we competent to love? It seems a very strange statement in the first instance. Do we need any competence to love? Love seems so natural. But the strange thing is that most of us do not love even ourselves. Do we? What do we love? Our self-image, our beliefs, body, and ambitions. "I" am good, and the others should appreciate me for being good. "I" believe in a particular thought or religion, and consider myself to be a sum-total of these thoughts and beliefs. "I" and my body, and therefore want to protect the body and become anxious whenever there is a threat to the body or a disease that does not get cured. "I" also become happy when this body feels instinctive pleasure, such as after eating tasty food, doing shopping, travelling to a place "I" like. "I" am my ambitions and work hard to achieve my targets. What is love, on the other hand? Love is a complete merger. When there is no difference between "I" and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Choice and Surrender

I was just listening to a talk by Sister Shivani . She says that we don't need to choose. Rather, we need to surrender, and the almighty decides for us. That's almost an impossible thing for the control freaks. How can I not choose? My choices have made me what I am. For example, I decided to do CA and write the civil services examination , and that's what defines what I am today professionally. I decided not to drink liquor, and I am proud of the fact that I am a teetotaler . I chose to read thousands of books on Neurology, Philosophy, Psychology, Quantum Physics and Mysticism . I also decided to explore Astrology and practice Vipassana . I decided to take sessions for the children. I chose my friends and people I would like to spend time with. The sum total of all these things is what I am today. How can I give away choices?  Most achievers are control freaks, and it is quite difficult for them to give up their choices. In fact, they have reached to their present positi...
Post a Comment
Read more