Beliefs versus experiential-knowledge

 Beliefs versus experiential-knowledge

I believe an electrician when he says “sir, you can safely touch that wire. It won't ‘shock’ you”

I touch. I get a shock 😥

I don't have any reason as_yet to disbelieve the electrican 🙏

His turn now👍

He inserts the tester_screwdriver into a live plughole. The tester doesn't glow 😜

Sheepishly he apologises: saaari saar( sorry sir,🙏) tester’s bulb is fused !

( “If a concept in irreligious_Hinduism fails to work, better check my premise”, i tolded/told myself 🙏)

A story i heard from my dad.

Centuries ago, when Christianity had just_invaded the shorees of Kerala….

An orthodox Namboothiri and a devout Father(a priest) grew up together as very close friends. Their religion never stood between their friendship ( unlike the ‘forced conversion’ tactics etc of today😓)

Both were aged, when the Namboothiri once got afflicted by a swelling in his legs. All kinds of native treatments failed to at least arrest the swelling . 

During a routine walk along the banks of a river near their dwellings, the Namboothiri asked his friend “hey friend….you also happen to know a bit of Ayurveda, isn't it? Can you suggest a remedy for this leg_swelling? Unable to walk comfortably with you_even, my dearest friend 😥”

Father : “ well, there's indeed a medicine, but it won't suit you, a strict vegetarian by religion 🙏😓”

Namboori : “okay, tell me what it is?”

Father : medicated fat of a snake 

Namboori: Shiva_Shiva!! Can't think of it 😳

Father: i told you, you won't agree to it 👍

Namboori: well, if not medicine, let me try my ‘faith’... Daily sandhyavandan in this river, standing waist_deep in water flow!

A few months later, the ailment got cured 😜

Namboori: see! My prayers worked. I am better now!

Father: Good 🙏… can we take a walk upstream, for a little distance, now that you are better and can walk easier?

Namboori: of course…let's walk👍

About a kilometre ahead, the father stopped.

Father, pointing to a huge pair of rock in the river : “friend, do you see the carcass of a huge python that got wedged between the rocks, and the water flowing over its partly decayed body?”

Namboori: i do see….what about it?

Father, smiling : the water contained the fat of that snake. You sipped thrice each time, each rituals for days, daily. I had suggested just a spoonful. But you consumed a larger dose, unawares 🙏. It seems to have worked 👍

( Forget about the emotional aftermath,🙏. Pause button for the rest of the story)

“Vataapi jeerno bhava( Mr vataapi, may you get digested)”... a dialogue from a puranic story.

A rishi was fed a goat_flesh, deceptively by the other twin brother of a rakshasa pair. The first one turns himself into a goat. The other makes a meal from the flesh of this ‘goat’ and feeds to passers_by in the forest. Soon after the Brahmin eats ( non_veg…please Note🙏), the living fellow calls out ‘vataapi, come out’. Then they both feast on the dead victim! A boon, that the pair got “death will be simultaneously only”. This rishi transcends the misused boon by using own spiritual powers,🙏. 

Shraadha ceremony in ancient days, the designated representative of the invoked_soul was fed meat+liquor ( as per stories). When the capacity to recover from the negatives of eating meat, drinking liquor deteriorated, the meat got replaced by ulud_vada, and liquor by honey🙏

I inferred from the above ( i may be wrong 🙏, but my guess-work…. works for me😜) : The entire Edifice of what is misconstrued as Hinduism today, is actually scientific. What is misconstrued as rigid_orthodoxy today, was actually a scientific concept, aimed for refining oneself for a specific purpose 🙏. 

I read in “Readers’ Digest” during 1960’s….neuroSurgeons abstain from “coffee” a week ahead of a brain_surgery, to ensure a steady pair of hands👍.  I took this clue and tried to ‘look' for a scientific reason behind those ‘seemingly stupid orthodoxic eccentricities’ . ( I coined a sentence for my personal use : any kind of self_refinement necessarily envisages some_kind of self imposed restriction 🙏…. Over years, this verbal form has turned into an instinctive non_verbal response within me 😜🙏).

My own gradual increase in sensitivity beyond sensory levels of perception happened to open the floodgates of insight into the ‘subtle' spiritual bijness/practices 😜🙏🙏🙏. I am constrained only_by the possible limited receptivity of the other, in sharing my experience 🙏

OpenMindedly yours,
psn(4 July 2026)