The dangers of stupidity

Monday, 13 April 2020

Quote from the True charm and Power of Vedanta

This message, the blessing of nivriti , is slowly percolating into the Western mind, through not only  influences going from India, but also from China and Japan and from their own writers, thinkers and psychologists, reacting wisely to their one-sided  cultural situation. By pravriti, you achieve social welfare-good houses , plenty to eat and drink, good dress, education, lighted streets and good roads; but too much of it is called consumerism today . for being peaceful, harmonious, fulfilled, and for the development of capacity to love people and to live in peace with them, we need the blessing of nivriti, which helps to manifest the spriutal energy that is within all in the form of the inherent divine spark. And , that nivritti can inspire all our pravriti also. That is what is taught in the Gita; nivriti inspiring pravriti. We have plenty of pravriti in India. Just now we have had our elections, and what an amout of pravritti we witnessed –full of violent thinking, violent actions, somebody snatching away the ballot boxes and many such things. Why do we do so? Because there is so little nivritti to stabilize and purity our thinking today. We should think and ask ourselves, . Why should we do this? Is it good for our democracy? Why have to give our people the freedom to vote as they lie; why should any political party control or interfere with it? We have all these distractions in our politics and much corruption along with it . but a touch of nivritti can change all this.

The Gita is going to tell us about that kind of life where there will be tremendous efficiency, great productivity and better inter-human relaxations. Mark the comprehensiveness of this approach of the Gita to human life and destiny! Sankaracharya is giving us in a nutshell this comprehensive spirituality of the Gita. It says that every human being is spiritual , even when he or she is in the pravriti field of life; one is never outside spirituality . That is a wonderful idea.

Spirituality is the encompassing, you are never outside of spirituality. That is the attitude of the Gita and the Vedanta. That is why I like this second sentence of his commentary beginning with. ‘Dvividho hi vedokto dhamah’ We never understood this truth these several centuries; we had diluted our religion and philosophy until in the last century our religion became like a the milk in our erstwhile market-90% water and 10% milk!

The dangers of stupidity

The Speaking Tree | Spirituality | ET

Ishan Chaudhuri

What is it about stupidity that makes it so susceptible to religions?

I know that many of you would find the previous sentence to be an error of some sort, and think that the actual intended query to be: what is it about religions that make it so susceptible to stupidity? But, no, the onus is not on religions but on stupidity to explain why those infused with it throw caution to the wind even when they put, never mind others, but themselves and their loved ones in harm’s way.

Absurd as it may seem to those not steeped in it, stupidity breeds its own logic. There are the usual harmless acts of stupidity, such as performing a yagna or religious ritual to, say, rid the coronavirus. Then there are downright dangerous ones, such as congregating to conduct a ritual to do the same while ‘knowing’ that any gathering while a contagion rages is realistically dangerous.

Stupidity thrives in believing anything its possessor chooses to believe in, and in not believing anything it chooses to not believe in. So, a stupid person can choose to believe that pigs can fly, while refusing to believe that an antidote, rather than an exorcist, can cure a snakebite. Religion becomes attractive for the stupid as the former runs on belief, essentially relying on believing in the comforting properties of believing.

There is a certain happiness to be gained in being fond of the notion that UFOs or Santa Claus exist. But to hold one’s breath till either descends from the sky or the proverbial chimney will only lead to asphyxiation, or worse

But, if He exists?

I drive joy There was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting ten precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy that I derive 4m.