Our entire schooling system has trained the human mind to come to answers as quickly as possible; the one who gets to the answer the quickest is appreciated and rewarded, because that is what is needed in the analytical and executive fields of life. But we have let this pattern invade us entirely and characterize our whole being. We have deeply programmed ourselves with the reward-penalty system administered during schooling. The repercussion of this is that now we are always in a hurry to conclude. One thinks that the more quickly he concludes, the smarter he is – a self-conferred reward.
So, now he concludes about every bit of life, including himself, with reprehensible urgency. He supposedly knows what he is, what happiness is, what a relationship is, what life is, what its purpose is, what death is, what spirituality is, what God is... you name it and he knows what it is. How smart! This has buried us under a heap of words and concepts, and taken away our ability to look. Now we cannot stop even for a moment to reflect upon fundamentals of life, including 'What am I? What am I seeking in life?'. We have turned so impotent that we are unable to poignantly remain with the questions that truly matter to our life, and pay keen attention to them for even two minutes straight. Why, we have even lost the ability to look at anything or anybody without strongly concluding about them. We have forgotten what it is like to be aflame and alive with ‘?’.
In Samskrita, one of the words for ‘conclusion’ is निर्धार – nirdhara, and the word is interesting. Nir-dhara can mean ‘holding on thoroughly’ and it can also mean ‘devoid of flow’. Being decisive in the external affairs of life would refer to the former meaning, and it is very much necessary. But concluding about Life itself would refer to the latter meaning, and you would become stagnant, numb to the miracle that throbs within you. We would barter our wakefulness for mere words. We would become dead (and) sure.
The irony is that while the religious ones today are dead sure about everything—God’s name, whether he has a form or not, his address, his family members, his assistants, his office hierarchy, how to get a ticket to his abode, and a whole lot of things (of course, everyone knows it is a man!)—the Vedic Rishis boldly declared "We do not know". It is only because they were true seekers that they eventually became seers. It is only because they did not succumb to the illusory reality of thought that they came to directly perceive Life beyond the play of thought.
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