“That is what you think!”
We as school kids decided to play this
game for a while...
The rule was, when one of us in the
group, says some 'statement of fact' (what ever it be... almost all
grammatically correct sentences end us as statements of fact, when it
is about something routine, and needs no arguments to examine and
agree with, like the date and time of the day/night, the names
assigned to us for personal identity purpose etc), whenever somebody
says 'Today is a Monday' the other person plays the game of saying
'That is what you think'! (By mutual consent, we agreed not to get
annoyed! Little did we realise the implication of what this
kind-of-consent is going to do to our 'mind' in terms of evolving
into a 'scientific temper' in the later part of our lives! At least I
did realise the 'transformation' that happened towards a
'scientific-receptivity' towards skeptical people, way beyond the
personal individualistic-concerns.. and the benefits were
awarded/paid, in 'spiritual-currency' if I may borrow or coin such a
phrase for the sake of humor)!
But anyway, we had great fun... There
was a condition too.. a self-imposed one... that the receiver of
'that's what you think' should sincerely try and convince the other,
while the other fellow keeps chanting the same mantra (that's what
you think...), to every subsequent effort to clarify that “No.. it
is not just-what-I-think, but it is true/a-fact/verifiable/etc
too....”... We did not make any conscious decision to 'end/stop'
this game... The kid-mind it was, some 7th standard at school, and
like many good and bad habits, this dropped off soon, only to be
replaced by some other mind-game!
....
As an adult, when required to deal with
real-life-situations, I seemed to counter people playing this very
game quite unawares, when their own pre-judices stiffened into a
resistance, being basically provoked by that instinctive safety belt
called 'fear' (presented/manifested, through sophisticated
attributes, socially acceptable ones!)... At work-places, the
rules-in-force, came handy to deal with certain situations... A few
other situations could be handled when I make it explicit that the
risk is all-mine, while the benefits are 'all-yours'... this part,
did produce a few occasional side-benefits, like , the inquisitive
ones set-about-to-also-think , something like this 'what is it that
makes this fool to render himself so vulnerable?'... If the thinking
deepens without a hurried 'prejudice' the next side-benefit is a
little bit of trust ! That is something quite 'handy-a-tool' to work
with that mind, towards a spiritual-possibility!.. Typically, at
homes, where the basic nature of relationship is 'demanded-of' to be
emotional in nature (while it gets wound up into commercial
considerations too often), this 'second-level-side-benefit'.... of
trust..... wriggles a lot like a baby trying to come out of a
stubborn womb, and the constrictions of the passage route,
complicated by restraints of inability of even a cesarean method) and
the people 'concerned'... figuratively/literally, grope within and
without, to find out 'what went wrong'....!
This skepticism, when it gets an
insulation of 'socially established standards of life-style',
deprives us of the bulk of the benefits of a spiritually evolved
society (of say, ancient times), and even the very flaws and faults
get heavily obscured to the 'sensory-level-eye' and its own forms of
'vision' formed thereby! There was a movie .... The title was
'Guru'... The story is about a 'society' that got isolated somehow,
within a valley or so, impregnable for other societies to reach
so-easily.. The people there were visually-blind, without any
exception!... A fiction of course, to convey the theme of mind's
'ignorant-blindness'... The hero, from our world lands there...
He could 'see' that every body was blind! But even among them there
was a class-difference, similar to our 'casteism' problems.. The
two castes clashed often, and maintained a 'distance'.. the obvious
rivalries led to innovation into defense-systems, typically unique to
blind-societies.. The main dependence was on 'sound-hearing'...
They were so-proud of their 'achievements at hearing-sharp' (a subtle
reference to our scientific achievements!)... The hero was
'caught', since he was not used to 'not-making' noises, the way the
people of those two-groups got trained into! Now his problems with
his captors were 'unique'! Somewhere he discovers that these people
eat a particular fruit, which caused this 'blindness' but over
generations, there was no 'remedy' since babies were also fed this
fruit, at the very infancy, and these babies(the next generation),
grew 'with blindness, by default'!!!... He managed to avoid eating
this fruit for a while... But later he too ate it, and became
blind... His 'crimes' (basically, as an unwelcome intruder into
their society---- VISA-problems!) invited punishment.. He was
'sentenced' to a punishment, which involved eating another poisonous
fruit... 'supposed/believed, to cause instant death' It so turned
out that, this punishment-fruit was the 'remedy for blindness'!!!! It
restored vision, instead of 'causing death'... This fiction part is
'used' by the story teller to 'educate' the hero of the movie about
roots-of-terrorism, the blind beliefs held by fanatic-groups etc...
(the movie is too slow moving.. and hence not so popular... it
takes a lot of patience to keep watching 'blind-people'!!!_).
I tried to take a look at what
dictionary says about skepticism... (but I guess, it was too late,
since the blog-blurted out, (got vomited out, along with the last
medicine-tablet), before the meaning took effect in me...!!!
quote:
“a personal disposition toward doubt
or incredulity of facts, persons, or institutions.”
“the doctrines or opinions of
philosophical Skeptics, especially the doctrine that a true knowledge
of things is impossible or that all knowledge is uncertain. Cf.
Pyrrhonism.”
Evolved masters use a unique kind of
'general anesthesia' when it becomes too difficult to find a tool to
deal with the skeptical-mind of a student, who is 'otherwise' willing
for a tutelage, while those masters who are 'otherwise-disposed' do
it clandestinely, unassumingly(they do not even assume a
human-form... so , we can say, in the both the senses of
'unassumingly', figuratively, and empirically!)...
Positively-skeptical, yours,
psn(16th August, 2014)
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