Friday 13 November 2009

Mindset- A hindrance to knowledge




Scenario 1:


Two friends watching television while having dinner, me and he. I had the remote in my hand and was surfing channels in ascending order.
I came across "GOD" channel which is a christian faith channel on which are aired christian music, programmes, commentaries and stage lectures.
One such lecture was being shown on it and I stopped for a while to listen.
He: Move on, change the channel.
Me: Few mins, let me listen what is he saying.
He: Change it man!
Me: Few mins dude.
He: They will be going on speaking something, you change it.
Me: Let me listen...you know everything I dont. (sarcastic)
He: Nope, change it quickly...(he understood the sarcasm :) )
Me: Aah, whats the use, you are not letting me listen, what do you know about christianity man?
He: I know one thing, you sin as you wish, then confess on a sunday and you are sinless again, thats christianity.
Me: Oh yeah, what else? (sarcastic again)
He: Nothing else and I dont want to know more...
Me: Well you should then.

I changed the channel as I knew I can watch it later. (GOD is a 24 hour channel)

Scenario 2:

We all had our dinner and just talking and were about to go to sleep. Me, He and They.
Me: Think I will go to sleep now.
They: We too.
He: I am not feeling like sleeping. Do you have any thing to read, any novel?
Me: We have one, "Tell me your dreams" , Sidney Sheldon's.
He: Oh, I have already read that. Anything else, feeling like starting one now.
Me: We have ebooks..."Time Machine" I think....
He: No ebooks, I like to read it from a paperback...
Me: Hmm, I have a copy of Quran in my cupboard, you can take it from there...
He: Oh, Quran? Thats in arabic rt?
Me: I have an english translation and transliteration too...
He: Oh, ok, aanh but no, not Quran..
Me: Thats what we have now then, its good, you can read...
He: No, I was thinking of reading a story..I think Quran will have all the stuff like dont tell lies, dont do bad things, etc...
Me: Quran is like a story, although poetic, but you can understand it nicely...
He: Aanh, Someother time... if nothing else is there think I should go to sleep...
Me: Nothing else, ok.

Scenario 3:

I was reading the first chapter of Bhagwad Gita where I came across the name "Sanjay", reminded me of a friend. I was readinng an ebook on my friends laptop. Me and He.
Me: Hey you also have a audio file right, for Bhagwad Gita.
He: Yes, but thats in pure Sanskrit, we will not understand.
Me: Ohk, tell me one thing, the whole Mahabharata's fight is told by Sanjay to the king? How does he see it?
He: That is like supernatural, he could see the battlefield through some mantras while sitting in the court, he had that virtue.
Me: Ohk.
He: And Bhagwad Gita is only a part of Mahabharata, it contains all the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna when Arjuna withdraws to fight with his brothers.
Me: Ohk.
He: After the teachings, Arjuna fights with his brothers and thus Mahabharata ends. Only the teaching part is Bhagwad Gita, remaining story is in Mahabharata book.
Me: Ohk, so you are telling that Bhagwad Gita basically teaches why you should fight with your brothers.
He: Nope, its not like that.
Me: But you just said so... you know it right, its your religion...
He: o, I didnt tell you completely, Arjuna's brothers were Kauravas, the evil ones...
Me: I know that, I know the story of Mahabharata, every Indian knows, B.R.Chopra gets the credit...
He: Then how can you say so...
Me: I just wanted to tell you one thing... since I am not from your religion, and so I hear stories from people who belong to your religion. They are not well read in it, so they tell me in bits and pieces and I create a mindset of mine and thus "misconceptions" start from here. When I said that Bhagwad Gita teaches why should you fight with your brother, that's a misconception in my mind, and this misconception will hinder me from further researching in your religion. I will think "Oh yours is a bad religion, why should I even bother to read about it". This is the reason why you don't want to read about Christianity or Islam. Some misconception stops you. Or thoughts like "its the same old thing in all religions so whats the use in reading it" stops you. So my suggestion, if you have any idea, may be right or wrong, you should not move away from getting knowledge...
He: Whats the use in today's world? It will not fetch me a job...
Me: Atleast you will know it, so that tomorrow if someone wants to create a riot by telling something about other religion you will know who is right and who is wrong and not take part in such riots...
He: Aah, ok. May be slowly I will know about all religions...I know mine for sure.
Me: Yes ofcourse, you will know slowly, I am only telling that dont move away because of any pre-conceived idea when you have a chance to learn. You know yours, hmm, may be, can you tell me how many gods are you supposed to worship mainly as a Hindu?
He: 3, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Me: You sure, it is not 300 or 33 crores?
He: Yes sure.
Me: Well I think your answer is wrong.

18 comments:

  1. Hands down.. this is one of the best articles you have written....(mind you.. I said "one of the" )... and firstly.. welcome to Toondooooo.. finally afaque has the time to create a cartoon strip.. hurrayyyyyyyyyy.... secondly.. i admit to the fact that we stop asking questions or learning thinking that we dont need to learn them... there's always a questions of "whats the big deal in knowing this??" .. wrong attitude.. hopefully we guys are working towards changing this attitude of ours... .

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  2. I think, I need to assign more csr works to Afaque & Swetha...

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  3. jokes apart, nice article man..but bad thing is, I don't have habit of reading books..

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ PREM.... LOL
    More CSRs will result in more blogs.... ( :P)

    Firstly thanks for reading...
    Have no reading habit, NP, atleast can watch TV channel/DVD like in scenario 1 (Atleast for a while), Or can get into discussion with someone (someone who you think has read), Or can attend lectures and involve in Q&A sessions.There are many ways to learn... I only feel that reading is the best.

    @Vamshi... Thanks Bhai

    @Swetha...Yeah was thinking from so many days what to draw on ToonDoo, got an idea yesterday :)
    And me too working on to change "that" attitude....

    @sfauthor...
    Thanks..
    I have not heard of this version, but downloaded it...It has only 62 pages..so i think I can read it... :)

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  5. Afaque bhai.. this is a nice thought provoking blog..

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  6. @Anonymous..
    I agree. Thats why I have written this... :)

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  7. It was a good attempt and unbiased (to any religion) one!!!!
    I think one cannot comment about any religion unless he completely knows that religion!!
    Some Hindus actually dont know that there are 33 crore gods (if im not wrong!!).
    But we dont worship all!!!
    AN Excellent Piece dude....
    Afaque...U ROCK!!!

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  8. @Sanjay,.. Thanks, the idea was that people read..

    Right many Hindus dont know that there are 33 crore gods, but Most also dont know that they are supposed to worship only One (as per Vedas)

    Read...read.... :)

    Thanks for reading...

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  9. There is no question of supernatural sight for Sanjaya. Vyasa gives him safe conduct. The Book of Bhishma begins with Sanjaya's 1st report as war-correspondent, rushing back from the field to report to the blind king that Bhishma is dead. In the next book of Drona, he describes himself fighting on the side of Drona. After Duryodhana flees the field in the Book of Shalya, Sanjaya is caught by Satyaki who is about to kill him when Vyasa arrives and saves him.

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  10. @Pradip.
    Thanks for dropping by and reading my blog...

    Not sure what interpretation you are presenting here but that is a very common notion that Sanjay had supernatural sight.

    This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about Bhagvad Gita, word-to-word from it,
    ""The blind king Dhritharashtra wished to follow the progress of the battle. The sage Vyasa offered to endow him with supernatural sight; but the king refused the boon, for he felt that the sight of the destruction of his near and dear ones would be too much for him to bear. Thereupon Vyasa bestowed supernatural sight on Sanjaya, who was to act as reporter to Dhritarashtra.""
    @ 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagwad_Gita'

    You may be right at your interpretation, but the widespread idea is of Supernaturality..

    ReplyDelete
  11. Long time...since i commented .. here we go..

    Your attempt to put up the point to tell everyone that.. there is nothing wrong in learning something which is of no use directly (get you a job) but might help you longtime is "not up to the mark".

    Well, lemme be frank..the topics or the subjects you choose are getting repetitive now..

    dont know why but...it somehow revolves around religion or belief of others...which is not a wise thing to do..

    forget about others. you yourself have a wrong conception on others and you are not able to get off from it...

    You feel that you are doing justice by putting the terms in general but.. if that was the case.. i would not have had any objection.... ur definitely mistaken sir.

    Try to write on some lively subjects...away from controversies and which would enhance our habit of reading..

    all the best

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  12. well as far as i know...there are 33 crore gods....its not necessary that all should be worshipped.....of those there are few which actually have more powers (shiva, vishnu, durga...)who are supposed(now thats another discussion!!) to be the creators of the world and are worshipped!!!!!
    I appreciate u having the knowledge of the hindu religion!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. @Mr.Unknown...
    Thanx for reading...

    In most of the movies today it is always shown that religious peace will only prevail if everybody forget about their beliefs and have only one belief in Love. Thats the reason either the hero and the heroine are of different religions or two big stars play characters of different religions, etc,etc.

    I DONT believe in what movies say.

    I believe that religious peace will only prevail if one knows about religion, Primarily about his own religion then about religion of others.

    As my school teacher used to say,
    Unless people have knowledge that Hindus pray to Sun rising in the East and Muslims turn towards Mecca which is in the West (of India)to pray,
    they will fight thinking that the other purposely is doing the opposite of what they do.

    Coming to the topics being repititive... My Fav topics are War (Esp Second World War), Death, Religion and Good and Bad Deeds. So you will come across different post revolving around these.

    About the lively topics, If I can I will definitely write about it.

    Coming to my misconception about others, this post of mine is an evidence that what you are calling my "misconception" about others is actually a truth. and the truth is People dont read/dont want to read about religion.

    Till now In any of my posts I have always spoken Generally about all religions.
    I can speak only about Islam if I want, but my intent is only to make people aware that religion is also a good topic to read about, and I always suggested people to read their own religion basically.

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  14. @Sanjay...

    I Agree and Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  15. r welcome...........
    but i agree with the above unknown person too !!!!
    nothing offensive though!!

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  16. I read the entire blog and the reply you gave me ..

    Religion,
    God/s,
    Quran,
    Belief

    These are the only things i could find and you have talked only about these not only in this particular blog but in many or all of ur blog..

    Dude.... what's your problem..??

    when i said your topics or writting have become repetitive...hope you understand atleast now.

    pheeewwww!!!

    @Sanjay:

    33 crore Gods??...Powerful Gods??..Dude what are you talking... I Dont think there is anything like that in this world..

    Powerful God..to whoM?? to you.. or to the world??

    33 crore Gods.. pls dont tell me that you were referring to a movie song or a book.. and that's the way you concluded on this...

    gimme a break guys...

    ReplyDelete
  17. @Mr.Unknown...

    I am sorry my blogs are repititive, but sorry again thats what I like to write about. As I said War, religion, death are my fav topics, so repitition is allowed. :)

    I think Sanjay is referring to the Vedas and the common belief of Hindus.

    I see your questions divided as below: (and my answers to it)
    1)Write something new, dont repeat topics...
    A)Okay, I am trying to write on variety of stuffs, will post them also. I want to become a writer so I have to write on various topics..I am trying on it.

    2)Your blogs is about advertising religion, esp Islam.
    A) I am a muslim, I can write confidently about Islam than other religion. Also I a not advertising it, my main aim is asking people to read scriptures of their own religion first, then of other religions.

    3)dont talk about scriptures or beliefs..
    A)I can see that you dont believe in scriptures (thats why a question to sanjay). The reason you dont believe is you have not read about it.

    You have read all of my blogs, and in all you can see is I urged people to read. One thing I dont understand whats stopping you to read?

    ReplyDelete

So..What's your point?

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