Towards Understanding Our Enemy:
Having no knowledge or little knowledge about something is what we term as 'ignorance'. Forming wrong notions or misconceptions about something or somebody without realizing their real nature is also ignorance. No one wants to be but everyone has to be in some way because we cannot know all in our short (also impermanent) life journey. When Lord Buddha propagated -'desire is the root cause of all sufferings', he actually condemned man's ignorance about the impermanence of worldly things that resulted in his desires and attachment to the mundane life. The objective of this article is to mirror how ignorance is the root cause of almost all personal, family and social issues, to alarm how dangerous it is to be ignorant and to light up the heart of darkness with some remedial exercises.
Your Weakness and Your Enemy's Strength
Look back at the barbarians of the Remote Age who cut the heads of thousands of slaves and offered flood of blood to appease their angry pagan god. We are startled and shocked to see how ignorant they had been. So, one man's ignorance is another man's death. What about moderns? A college student commits suicide just because he had expected more and failed in the exam. A husband knocks his better-half(!?) down to death just because she quarreled or questioned. The price of ignorance is death. How much valuable time, and energy is wasted throughout life all over the world, after mad love, lust, quest for wealth and thirst for power and name that only the sunset of life reveals! In fact, one third of our life drowns in sleep, another one third is consumed for our struggles and labors for survival, and the remaining one third, in innocence and ignorance!
Reasons and Remedial Exercises
(i) Break Your Chains and Ties
Religion (which says 'God is truth') is to realize truth, to possess it, to be with it and to become it, not to shut door to it. A religion that desires to keep its followers in ignorance is not a true religion. We always draw a circle around us and remain happy to be within. How many circles and chains are around us - religion, family, tradition, custom, so-called status, culture, habits and principles? Rousseau rightly said - "man is born free but everywhere in chains". Let us not be a well-frog but a sea frog as Vivekananda voiced. Please come out of your own circles and stop forcing others to be into the circles you draw. Accept truth wherever it is, in whatever religion it is and whoever says it. Because it is the Fire of Truth that alone can burn all your ignorance.
(ii) Change Your Points of View
In your life change in views indicate your progress in knowledge and experience. Look at the same thing, person and problem but by standing at different places. Exhaust all possible viewpoints which enable you more to understand your surroundings and the persons you contact. A managing director should wear the dress of a customer to understand the quality of the product and customer's expectation, satisfaction, desires, needs and much more in true colors. The MD should put on the dress of the office assistant who reveals more about the inter-personal issues and grievances in the company. A father should not think like a father. He should be his wife, his son, daughter, cook, gardener and the like. Because the more you have points of view, the less your misconceptions, problems and ignorance will be! Change the directions of your life-journey to acquire new knowledge and experiences to divorce your ignorance.
(iii) Journey Through Time
Think of what you often think. Your min reflects your experiences and commitments in the nearby past or your what-to-do tasks in the nearby future. Your remote past or future is never (or scarcely) visited by your mind. Be prepared for journey through time, try the following exercise and see the result how much of your ignorance is immediately burnt:
Step 1: Sit on a selected peaceful place where no-disturbance-state is guaranteed, and close your eyes.
Step 2: Start thinking of what happened in your life 5 years back; after 5 minutes go back 10 years back and do the same; similarly move back in time up to the incidents of your childhood days.
Step 3: Now, from your date of birth go 100 years back and see how the world was (imagine with so far gathered knowledge of history); then go back 500 years, then 1000 years and like this up to the origin of man. Your broad mind now says - 'how narrow-minded I had been so far'
Step 4: Do the same but going ahead in time and visualize how the advancement in your life, in the world and in science will be - up to several thousand years ahead.
(Note: Your mind should be peaceful and emotionless to bring out better results in this exercise)
(iv) Journey Through Space
Where are you now? Come out of the earth at once and being in space see your country. How many people how small in size are moving here and there, and engaged with how many activities. Now watch other countries and the happenings there. Now see how fast the earth is rotating around the earth, and run a race with it if you can. Who is the pilot of this gigantic airplane? Where is the engine that enables to run everlastingly without rest? O.k. Stop. Now go beyond our solar system and cross all such solar systems in the space (several millions in no), and stand at the edge of our universe and see where your earth is. It is not at all seen. You feel that you are a small particle of dust in the whole universe. Your ego is burnt. Compare your short span of life with the everlasting one of the universe. What is your contribution to making and function of universe? You are a colorful soap-water bubble wandering innocently and merrily to be burst shortly and become no more. Our life is but a journey from nothingness to nothingness through existence. Now let us go back to our earth to start our routine life, but with broad-mindedness without being tempted by the words of worldly people who may tempt you by saying "Ignorance is bliss."
Having no knowledge or little knowledge about something is what we term as 'ignorance'. Forming wrong notions or misconceptions about something or somebody without realizing their real nature is also ignorance. No one wants to be but everyone has to be in some way because we cannot know all in our short (also impermanent) life journey. When Lord Buddha propagated -'desire is the root cause of all sufferings', he actually condemned man's ignorance about the impermanence of worldly things that resulted in his desires and attachment to the mundane life. The objective of this article is to mirror how ignorance is the root cause of almost all personal, family and social issues, to alarm how dangerous it is to be ignorant and to light up the heart of darkness with some remedial exercises.
Your Weakness and Your Enemy's Strength
Look back at the barbarians of the Remote Age who cut the heads of thousands of slaves and offered flood of blood to appease their angry pagan god. We are startled and shocked to see how ignorant they had been. So, one man's ignorance is another man's death. What about moderns? A college student commits suicide just because he had expected more and failed in the exam. A husband knocks his better-half(!?) down to death just because she quarreled or questioned. The price of ignorance is death. How much valuable time, and energy is wasted throughout life all over the world, after mad love, lust, quest for wealth and thirst for power and name that only the sunset of life reveals! In fact, one third of our life drowns in sleep, another one third is consumed for our struggles and labors for survival, and the remaining one third, in innocence and ignorance!
Reasons and Remedial Exercises
(i) Break Your Chains and Ties
Religion (which says 'God is truth') is to realize truth, to possess it, to be with it and to become it, not to shut door to it. A religion that desires to keep its followers in ignorance is not a true religion. We always draw a circle around us and remain happy to be within. How many circles and chains are around us - religion, family, tradition, custom, so-called status, culture, habits and principles? Rousseau rightly said - "man is born free but everywhere in chains". Let us not be a well-frog but a sea frog as Vivekananda voiced. Please come out of your own circles and stop forcing others to be into the circles you draw. Accept truth wherever it is, in whatever religion it is and whoever says it. Because it is the Fire of Truth that alone can burn all your ignorance.
(ii) Change Your Points of View
In your life change in views indicate your progress in knowledge and experience. Look at the same thing, person and problem but by standing at different places. Exhaust all possible viewpoints which enable you more to understand your surroundings and the persons you contact. A managing director should wear the dress of a customer to understand the quality of the product and customer's expectation, satisfaction, desires, needs and much more in true colors. The MD should put on the dress of the office assistant who reveals more about the inter-personal issues and grievances in the company. A father should not think like a father. He should be his wife, his son, daughter, cook, gardener and the like. Because the more you have points of view, the less your misconceptions, problems and ignorance will be! Change the directions of your life-journey to acquire new knowledge and experiences to divorce your ignorance.
(iii) Journey Through Time
Think of what you often think. Your min reflects your experiences and commitments in the nearby past or your what-to-do tasks in the nearby future. Your remote past or future is never (or scarcely) visited by your mind. Be prepared for journey through time, try the following exercise and see the result how much of your ignorance is immediately burnt:
Step 1: Sit on a selected peaceful place where no-disturbance-state is guaranteed, and close your eyes.
Step 2: Start thinking of what happened in your life 5 years back; after 5 minutes go back 10 years back and do the same; similarly move back in time up to the incidents of your childhood days.
Step 3: Now, from your date of birth go 100 years back and see how the world was (imagine with so far gathered knowledge of history); then go back 500 years, then 1000 years and like this up to the origin of man. Your broad mind now says - 'how narrow-minded I had been so far'
Step 4: Do the same but going ahead in time and visualize how the advancement in your life, in the world and in science will be - up to several thousand years ahead.
(Note: Your mind should be peaceful and emotionless to bring out better results in this exercise)
(iv) Journey Through Space
Where are you now? Come out of the earth at once and being in space see your country. How many people how small in size are moving here and there, and engaged with how many activities. Now watch other countries and the happenings there. Now see how fast the earth is rotating around the earth, and run a race with it if you can. Who is the pilot of this gigantic airplane? Where is the engine that enables to run everlastingly without rest? O.k. Stop. Now go beyond our solar system and cross all such solar systems in the space (several millions in no), and stand at the edge of our universe and see where your earth is. It is not at all seen. You feel that you are a small particle of dust in the whole universe. Your ego is burnt. Compare your short span of life with the everlasting one of the universe. What is your contribution to making and function of universe? You are a colorful soap-water bubble wandering innocently and merrily to be burst shortly and become no more. Our life is but a journey from nothingness to nothingness through existence. Now let us go back to our earth to start our routine life, but with broad-mindedness without being tempted by the words of worldly people who may tempt you by saying "Ignorance is bliss."
A new approach to ignorance. Keep it up!
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