We strongly
believe that it is not possible to advance on the path of spirituality without
the simplicity of the mind, conduct and words. Here, ‘words’ may be understood
as one’s expression and communication. The communication may be meant for the
external world as well as for one’s own self.
What is
‘simple’? Maybe, it is not possible to answer this question without some
discussion. Let us say, what is not complicated or complex is simple.
Then, what
is complicated? If we are standing under a mango tree, and I pluck a fruit from
it and say, “This is a mango fruit and it is fresh”; you would accept my words
without any doubt. Wasn’t it simple? Sure, it was.
As against
this, let us consider a situation where I show you a sealed packet and say,
“This packet contains slices of mango, as fresh as the slices of a fresh mango
fruit because they are preserved using the best available techniques of
preserving fruits by a firm of flawless reputation.” It is highly unlikely that you would accept my
latter statement with the same level of confidence as you had in the former
one. You will have no option but to remove many of your doubts before accepting
my statement only as a partial truth, because the fruit in the packet can never
be as fresh as the one that was plucked a few second before.
Anything
that is simple has to be simple. It can’t be made to appear as simple. At least
some doubts are associated with what is not simple. There is definitely
something pretentious about the things that are not simple.
I will present
one more example, for it may help us in understanding the things that will
follow. If you ask me as to what I know about the God; and I answer it by
saying that the God is the creator of this universe that is the most powerful
entity one knows about; my answer may be
probed further in many ways. It is true that I have not seen the God in
the process of creating even a blade of grass, what to say about him creating
the universe. I have no idea about the relative strengths of the things in this
world. Obviously, there may be many doubts associated with my answer; hence it
was not a simple answer.
As against
this if I say, “I don’t know who the God is. It is only that I have been told
that He exists and helps us in many ways. This thought gives me some strength
and makes many things in my life simpler.” Now, it is up to the others to
accept my answer or summarily reject it on account of their own concepts and
beliefs. There can’t be any room for doubt in my answer given above, and
therefore, it was simple.
Simplicity
of thought cannot be achieved by gathering more and more knowledge created by
others or in depth intellectual analysis using rules of logic framed by man; it
can only be achieved by conducting according to the thoughts that dominate our
minds and experiencing the outcome. If we do that, the thoughts are broken down
into small elements that are verifiable and are easy to comprehend. For
example, we find that if we do not harm others, we are less likely to be
harmed. That being our constant experience becomes a simple thought that cannot
be doubted.
As human beings,
do we regulate our conduct after studying the acts and rules framed by law
making authorities in our respective countries, knowing full well that a modern
citizen is legally expected to be aware of the minutest interpretation of the
laws of the land framed by others? But, in this world where a very large
majority of educated population does not read beyond what various educational
curricula prescribe, how a common man manages to conduct himself as the law
abiding citizen? Taking a clue from the above, it is easy to understand that
the man has the ability to simplify the huge and complex knowledge contained in
many ancient scriptures and the books of knowledge. If such knowledge exists in
any form in this world, it is only because of the human conduct reasonably aligned
with the vast knowledge created by our ancestors and the people with great
wisdom that has percolated down to the smallest illiterate person who knows
nothing but how to feed himself.
We have seen
that we can simplify complex knowledge by conducting accordingly and
experiencing its impact on our day to day life. Then, how do we simplify our
conduct? We simplify our conduct by observing the gap between our intentions
and the outcome of our conduct. If our collective intention is to feed
ourselves and the collective outcome is that many among us remain hungry; our
conduct can’t be simple. We have to identify the elements of doubtful and
dubious nature in our conduct.
I have
talked about ‘collective intentions’ and ‘collective outcome’. The
Spirituality, the religion, the Dharma, or the ethics; all are for the
entire human race; they can’t be different for different individuals. It is
true that we can’t influence others’ intentions, but we can definitely learn to
have the right intentions that, according to our understanding, should bring
about the right outcome. And, that we should do knowing full well that the
outcome may not be commensurate with our intentions and conduct, because the
intentions and conduct of others may not be appropriate. By thinking and
conducting different from others we definitely make many things difficult for
us, but it had been the constant experience of all those who thought and acted
differently that; first, the difficulties they had to face had never been as
big as to have become insurmountable, and second, there had also been many gains,
the others remained deprived of.
The most
crucial thing is that by not thinking and conducting with simplicity, that is,
according to the right collective intentions to bring about the right
collective outcome we become instrumental in destroying or at least, corrupting
the great knowledge gathered by our ancestors and the people with great wisdom.
Collective intentions and collective outcome can’t be away from the universal
intelligence of fair survival of the all that exist. That obviously is natural intelligence,
hence is simple and devoid of any contradictions, pretentiousness and doubt.
If we
surround ourselves with things that are not natural, our emotions and intellect
gets many opportunities to become confused with what is not natural and hence,
drifts away from the universal consciousness. It, therefore, becomes necessary
to adopt a simple lifestyle. We surround ourselves with many things not only for
more convenience, but also out of fear that if we do not have a particular
thing we may land up in some trouble. We expand our needs to include everything
that may possibly be available to us. More often than not, it hampers our ‘natural’
problem solving abilities. It makes us less creative. Apart from what I
discussed herein above, there are many things that go against our tendency to
opt for a complicated lifestyle.
Simplifying
our communication with the outside world and with our inner self is not
possible without achieving simplicity of the thoughts and conduct. As long as
some complications exist in our thoughts and conduct what we express cannot be
simple. A mind that is in confusion, is in some dilemma or have any intentions
to express what is not beneficial to the listener or who is looking at the one
who is expressing, he (the one who expresses), would always deliver something
that is not genuine. What is not genuine is pretentious. And, what is
pretentious can’t be simple.
[This series is
being presented by Promod Kumar Sharma, who has also authored “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
0 comments:
Post a Comment