Attractive Arguments are Distractive!

 ATTRACTIVE ARGUMENTS ARE DISTRACTIVE. 

If an X god cries on death of his wife, how can he be God? If a Y god takes help of monkeys to save his wife, how can he save you?

The problem with these approaches is not the questioning, our tradition is supports curiosity based questioning. 

Infact most of our scriptures are born out of question-answer dialogue between a disciple and a teacher. Many Upanishads, Bhagvad Geeta, Ayurvedic texts are a result of deep curiosity of the disciple and a kind-hearted guru.

Ignorance of important aspects of one's tradition, political/social scenario and other aspects is definitely our fault. But on the other hand, Knowing everything is not possible as well. Therefore in my understanding, the bigger problem is not the lack of knowledge, but not knowing where to seek the right answers from and discriminating true knowledge from false claims.

Nyaya shastra (one of the schools of Indian Philosophy) puts a lot of emphasis on tests for validity of information. Knowing which information can be relied upon is the first step towards 'Knowledge acquisition (Prama/Gyan)'. 

With regards to the above topic, Nyaya shastra specifies that information only from a reliable person who has studied the concerned topic with due diligence is valid.

The process of arguing over a topic (Vaad), another limb of Nyaya philosophy was highly systematised so as to make the conclusion born out of the discussion authentic and valid. Attractive argument doesn't necessarily mean its true. In the Nyaya tradition, such baseless arguments disqualified the participant at the very first instance. 

This ancient Nyaya wisdom was one of the essential branches for a student to learn in Vedic days. If foundation is built with Logic and  the correct Knowledge acquisition process, the superstructure becomes unshakable. 

Satya (truth) is a dynamic process and needs to be accessed with deep study or from a person who has done that. May be more then the knowledge, we need to to learn how to seek knowledge before believing in it?

Dr. Karan Mittal 

MBBS, MA (Sanskrit, Clinical Psychology) 

M.Sc (Counselling Psychology) 

Ignorance is Bliss v/s Vimudhatma

Learning moral, idioms, phrases through fables, history, legends was a significant exercise during childhood. 

"Ignorance is bliss", is one such lesson that has been taught to us right from our childhood days. The intensity of this particular lesson taught slowly increased from simple stories to real life situations as one grew up.

A trailer of a recent movie made me contemplate, "Is ignorance truly a bliss?" Isn't the modern approach emphasizing too much on ignorance of many aspects of life in the name of specialization? Can one really ignore learning the survival skills in name of expertise in a financial skill set?

Though I haven't seen the movie yet, but it compels me to think whether staying politically/spiritually/emotionally ignorant a big risk to one's survival itself? 

Indic traditions have always discouraged the mode of ignorance (Tamoguna). As a civilization our focus has always been "Knowledge". Ignorance was always discouraged and one's curiosity towards various issues was kindled. In one of his verses, Acharya Chanakya compares an ignorant man with an army without commander, both being destined for defeat!

The Bhagvad Geeta calls a person with predominance of Tamoguna (mode of ignorance) as a 'Vimudhatma'. Such a person is bound by the clutches of delusion, laziness and sleep; ultimately heading towards self-destruction. Isn't our ignorance of important political or dharmic matters making us a Vimudhatma of some form?

 

If one studies Indian dialectical ( shastric debate) traditions, one realizes that we had a heritage of knowing the opponent's system more then what the opponent himself knew. Knowing one's own subject is good, having awareness of opponent's subject is better, excelling at opponent's subject matter was considered the best. This was the reason that gave rise to such a rich knowledge tradition and heritage.

Isn't it high-time one question one's ignorance of various aspects of life in name of specialization? It's not only limited to political scenario but to things like believing in fake claims on WhatsApp to most important aspects like questioning one's tradition without even making an attempt to study it. The expanse is huge. 

Dr. Karan Mittal 

MBBS, MA(Sanskrit, Clinical Psychology), 

M.Sc (Counselling Psychology), PGDCH, DCHP

Exploring Indian Psychology

Whenever I mention about Indian Psychology to anyone, the immediate response I encounter is, "India never had a concept of Psychology/Psychotherapy". To people who know Indic Traditions usually attribute Indian psychology to Yogasutras alone.

My contemplation over the years over this topic makes me question, a civilization which focussed on physical reality in terms of Yoga and Ayurveda and Spiritual reality with innumerable Shastras starting like Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas; how can it ignore the connecting link between the two : MIND?

Has Bhartiya civilization never focussed on Mind? Have we lost the concerned tradition like we have lost many Veda shakas? Or our focus has been different as compared to modern conventional psychology?

The earliest reference to mental health in written tradition is found in Atharva Veda which lists down 20 different mental afflictions. Acharya Sushruta in his famous treatise on Surgery, enlists 'A happy and contended mind' as a criteria for a healthy person. Needless to say Darshan shastras like Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta (Bhagvad geeta is a part of Vedanta darshan) have discussed mind, its associated functions and personalities quite exhaustively. Ayurveda considers Bhuta vidya i.e treatment of Psychological afflictions as one of the 8 branches of Ayurvedic treatment modalities. 

With prominent limbs of Indic civilization discussing mind in some form or the other, it can't be an ignored aspect in our tradition. Probably, our compulsive need to legitimise any of our knowledge systems based on its equivalence with modern Western knowledge is a problem!!

Let us explore the Indic mind traditions in the next few articles to dive deeper into this unexplored and yet important aspect of our civilization 

Dr. Karan Mittal 

MBBS, MA( Clinical Psychology, Sanskrit), MSc ( Counselling Psychology), PGDCH, DCHP.