Imagine a school kid who is made to learn multiplication tables by heart, imagine a scientist analyzing crazy equations to come up with something. In both these acts, the subjects are undergoing the process of gaining knowledge - the former uses only the mind and the latter uses the intellect as well. Can we assign the superiority of the scientist (who uses both intellect and the mind) over the kid (which uses the mind) ? I would on the other hand say, learning multiplication tables, by heart, greatly helps in doing equations. Superiority of the intelligence over the mind cannot be argued in general. Similarly, in any religion, there are rituals and philosophy behind the religion. It will greatly help a student (in life) to understand the philosophy, if he performs the rituals, just as learning tables helps us to do the equations. Here too, the notion of superiority cannot be assigned to a person who is questioning some aspects in religion and a person performing a ritual. Well, the student can be bright enough to understand the existence of a calculator and avoid learning tables by heart. Its the same case with religion, the calculator is just invisible !
7 comments:
I think the learning curve for a child to understand the basics and alphabets is much more than that for a scientist to understand some concepts. The scientist's brain has has some supervised learning till that point, whereas a child has to start from scratch. Very similar to a computer beginning to play chess. Learning (training) and testing.
Nice analogy to that of religion.
The best part of religion is that some rituals (which may be beneficial in nature) DOES NOT HAVE to be understood (if performed blindly also). Similar to a greedy algorithm. Of course, the efficiency is doing so is not guaranteed. Which is why learning and knowing why we do what we do is important - just as a better, faster algorithm.
Another kool post..somebody stop this guy....just kidding..in fact ,i am very very impressed..guess that's 2oo flattering..
nevermind,here are my thougts that might seem pretty convoluted..:)..
Guess everybody knows that interest in a subject matter stimulates knowledge. Knowledge in turn fires up the thought process that'll help us keep trying to find some thing that is yet 2 be discovered.
When it comes to philosophy of a religion (esp ours) , i guess lots of great people have been constantly appliying both their chittha(mind) and jnana (knowledge) ,which has lead to great advances in our spiritual domain..and probably
we need to continue that bhani(style)...we seem to be discovering one too many things in the physical domain..:)
Nonetheless, the knowledge of something is better than its nescience.That's exactly why I guess even the people who acknowledge and practise the rituals seem to get benefited even if they don't actually know the raison d'etre
Talking about knowledge, rituals and the benefits of reasoning, I guess it would be approprite over here to mention the practise of rituals like severing innocent animals in the name of sacrifice to gods still exist. I wonder how can such practises actually apease the gods ??
btw,,,i deliberately used some sanskrit words just 2 start getting myself more prepared to read posts from guys like the anand(http://www.dwaarakavaasin.blogspot.com/)
....i know u guys wudn't mind it.:)
peace
Kasthuri,
I agree with the general idea that some rituals are indeed essential for bringing discipline to the individual.however as regards the calculator, I am of the opinion that any substitutes for thought in the normal provinces in which it operates tend to increase dependence. this can happen in religion also where people get tied to the ritual and neglect the essence. I fear this has happened to a great extent in our tradition.we must recognise the need for things in their proper spheres.
Lord KRISHNA would say,
use the calculator when it is permitted and never out of convenience, for he who resorts to shorter methods to solve problems which can be solved mentally is bound to increase his rajasic tendency.
good post but I think the objections to sacrifices and the like should be treated seriously. the SANAHTHANA DHARMA can be preserved only if KRISHNA'S original message in the Gita is understood and the metaphor behind the term YAJNA understood.
Anand,
When you say "KRISHNA's original message" - do you mean a person called Krishna who lived sometime ago and left us all these messages... Or do you mean a group of people who created the Gita (and told us all that it was a message from Krishna)..
And what is "Krishna's original message" in Gita? And how does he tackle the issue of making sacrifices??
If intellect is water, ritual is the cup.
Finally intellect is what we need, but without theh rituals, there is nothing to hold the faith together. It would just have been spilled all over and gone waste.
Now, is water superior or the cup??
Whatever, the water exists because of the cup. The exists for the water.
I should have learnt the mutiplication tables well, now it is hard for me ... to multiply :)
@ tt_giant : Nice point there. Yes, its always better to know what we do in order to do it more efficiently and with more enthusiasm.
@ krishna : What you say is absolutely right. Applying jnana is good and helps in progressing further. About sacrifices, its a real pity to observe people slitting the throats of poor animals. Religion is about self sacrifice and not the sacrifice of animals. Right philosphy should reach the masses. This should be the most important task and should be taken up immly.
@ anand : By calculator in the religion, I meant the universal sprit that's sitting there and watching us every moment. But, what u say is true also.
@ swami : I hope Anand will reply to your question. But, I know the term sacrifice in Gita is not the ritual performed with fire and stuffs.
@ tj : Wow Man, cool analogy...I love it.
@ lavanya : Don't worry, there is a calc! :-)
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