We
must not take our lives for granted, because if we do it, we might simply act
as timid slaves of a stagnant society, delivering the sins of the past to the
future; and in the bargain suffer throughout our lives and also make our future
generations suffer more than us.
We begin with the realization that we know very little about
our lives. We think on the basis of what we observe and what our ancestors had
said about what they observed. Occasionally, we become rather sure about some
of the solutions and answers to our problems, but we often prefer to find out
what others, living with us, think about the problems and questions we have
before us. This is the point where our prejudices, receptivity and pride come
in to influence the solutions and answers to the problems we had come up with.
In other words, we, generally, try to seek a mental (with the help of our mind)
confirmation of what we had intellectually (with the help of our intellect)
thought. The outcome of such efforts is nothing but a re-presentation of
retrograde and rejected thoughts that are worthless, and, often, harmful.
The right way to move ahead is to experiment strictly following
the scientific norms. Experimenting is doing something that one has never done
earlier in given or similar circumstances, and carefully observing and
recording the outcome. But, what is ‘scientific’? The ‘science’ is what cannot
be influenced by time, space and circumstances. One may call it the truth, absolute
or practical. Here, we are discussing about exploring the truth of things
related to human life, but not necessarily and particularly related to physical
objects. In experiments related to human life the experimenter, himself,
becomes the primary source that can influence the experiment; the time, space
and circumstances remaining as the secondary sources.
We often commit a blunder of using the word ‘detachment’ in
spiritual or religious sense. In physical experiments we ‘isolate’ a system
from all external influences; in scientifically carried out experiments for finding the truth/truths related to human
life we ‘detach’ ourselves from the experiment not to influence it with our mind,
intellect and ego, and permit everything to happen the way it happens in the given
time, space and circumstances.
If we care to look closely at the life and work of selfless
people who have made great contribution
to humanity in their own times and even thereafter, we will find that
they felt, contemplated, experimented and finally acted on the basis of
inferences drawn from their experiments.
In modern times when we are ‘educated’ to be self-centered,
we undergo infinite momentary escapes fearing turmoil. If we summon some courage
to make even a partial detachment a constant way of our life to carry out experiments
for finding the truth/truths of things in human life we may learn to get
involved with peace.
PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA
[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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