Journey to becoming better human being - 50 Why educated do not act like educated? In our casual chitchat, we were discussing about recent wars and roaring business of weapons when Rohit raised a question. “We can hope that educated people would realise the value of human life. Then why citizens of such countries are allowing their leaders to proliferate wars and weapons in their name?” We realised that perhaps they might not be endorsing such acts, but still they seem to surrender in front of the whims of their leaders. Good topic for discussion in our weekly meeting. “It is important to understand the core of Education.” We recollected what we generally discussed about education. We had heard concerns about the forms of education, or the stream of education related to the income potential. We ourselves had so far thought of education as gathering knowledge and information. Perhaps it would involve acquiring certain skills and even building personality or attitudes.
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Journey to becoming better human being – 49 Why what is happenings - ‘nowadays’ - disturb us? Jayesh was telling about his uncle who was very disturbed. His son had gone to USA for further studies and had just informed that he plans to settle there. When the son was going abroad the father was very happy. In fact, he struggled hard to raise money for his going. Then why is he disturbed now? We proposed that for discussion in our weekly meeting. “We initiate a change process but when the outcome comes, it clashes with our formation values and we experience it as an inner loss.” Intriguing! As always in these meetings, we get to see a very different perspective of our everyday life. As we discussed, we realised that we get our children educated and when they grow up, we find their language, dressing, aspirations, mannerism etc. very different from our habitual preference. It is common to hear the phrase ‘Aaj Kaal ke Bachhe’ (children ‘nowadays’). The perceptions of thes
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Journey to becoming better human being – 48 Is Human being only a puppet? A boy from a slum came first in the dancing competition. What I noticed around was not so much amusement about how he danced, but from the fact that he came from slum. On my questioning, Suresh explained that it was so because we do not expect a person from slum to be so talented. I decided to propose this as a topic for our weekly meeting. “It is mistakenly believed that the environment in which one grows, determines one’s nature.” The nature of a person from village or slum, from poor family, illiterate parents or a family with tensions among parents is likely to be impacted by these factors. This sound reasonable. Certainly, there is a likely influence. But as we probed further, we realised that these are not the only factors. Afterall twins born and grown up in the same family, at the same time with the same environment, often have very different nature. “It is not the environment, but
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Journey to becoming better human being – 47 Is what I see not a fact? I had gone to drop Suresh the other day. His father was anxious and asked Suresh, ‘got late?’ On my way back, I was thinking about it and admired his concern and care. Next day when we met, Suresh was apologetic about the behaviour of his father, suggesting that he insulted Suresh in front of me. I was stunned. What appeared to me care and concern appeared to him as an insult. Same words ‘got late’, but so diverse meaning. I decided to take it up in our weekly meeting. “You hear not only with the ear, or see with the eye, but also with your mindset.” Incredible but as I thought more, it made sense. All along I had believed that what we see is what everyone sees. If it is restricted to receiving the picture of what is happening, perhaps that would be true. But the picture has no meaning without getting interpreted and that is where the mindset is involved. I recollected what I had heard about e
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Journey to becoming better human being - 4 6 Whom and what to thank for ? “Say thank you to uncle”, we overheard a mother nudging her child, as we walked towards our meeting place. Sujay, delighted to see how the mother was grooming the child, however expressed his doubt whether saying ‘thank you’ was merely an etiquette or reflected the spirit of gratitude. I guessed it was the later, but we decided to propose that as a topic for our weekly meeting. “To be grateful is an internal experience and it need not be same as saying thank you.” As I reflected, I realised that most of the time I say ‘thank you’ mechanically as a mere formality. Honestly, I am not sure whether I even mean it every time I speak it. Coming to think about it, I just finished typing a complaint letter about misbehaviour of a staff at a bank and at the end of the complaint I stated, ‘thanking you.” What was I thanking for? On the other hand, what is the meaning of gratefulness as an internal e
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Journey to becoming better human being - 45 What is required for my transformation? Suresh was talking about a person who broke-down because of a problem in his life. What was amusing was that the profession of this person was to give public talks on Positive thinking. We realised that to talk about and to teach others about such things seem to be easy but to implement in own life is not that common. Why is it so? We proposed that as a topic for our weekly meeting. “Personal transformation is a process.” If something disturbs me beyond a point, I get angry as almost an automatic response. I might have read many books or attended many lectures advising that I should not get angry. But that does not help me when I am getting angry. Instead what is important is to bring about changes in myself in such a way that what was disturbing me at one stage does not disturb me anymore. That is a personal transformation involving a process of consistent and systematic work on onese
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Journey to becoming better human being – 44 Can others be different and yet equal? We were discussing about the education. Some get very well-developed education some others get nominal and many others get no opportunity at all. With such vast differences, is it not obvious that the inequality will go on widening? We proposed the topic of inequality for our weekly meeting. “Affirming equality of all human being is one of the six tenets of Humanist Attitude.” We knew that Humanist Attitude refers to the approach to life with aspiration of building a human society. We live in a time where there is a lot of talk about humanity but in fact it is a dehumanised world. It is vital to understand the finer aspects of this perspective. It is generally believed that everyone is equal in front of law. But on deeper scrutiny we find that the laws protect and support those with more resources. The legal processes are lengthy and costly resulting in access according to the ava