Reason and Belief …the argument continues

It’s a coincidence that I get to write sequel of a blog so early. In fact I have never written any sequel to any of my entries but could not resist myself writing this one. I had earlier written the blog on reason and belief and coincidentally I attended a discourse on 17^th Chapter of Sri Bhagwad Gita by the well renowned speaker Swami Parthasarthy in Mumbai.

The discourse was nothing much to write about as most of the tenets are quite general and if you are someone who believes in the google punchline of “do no evil” you would not find much content in these discourses. Like in Sufi teachings finally most of the tenets boil down to “look within for happiness, help people, spread happiness, pursuit knowledge etc” and this discourse was nothing much different.

However what struck me in the discourse was an inherent superiority assigned to reason over belief. The Swami talked about blind faith, being tamasik (lethargic), ridiculed vastushastra (not that I am any fan of it), had condescending attitude towards people wearing sacred threads around etc. I believe as he is from the “Vedanta” school of thoughts he has an inherent propensity towards reason. Problem is that people do not realize their trust on reason also come from a belief on reason. The dictum that reason is supreme impacts the lives of Vedantis and hence its obvious that they give it more value. However paradoxically not realizing that there is an inherent dichotomy that there is no reason why they should consider reason to be supreme. Apart from the fact which I had earlier pointed out in my blog that what we understand we appreciate. Reason we understand, so basically what our limited cerebral competence gives us as understandable we take it as reason and things beyond that we do not comprehend. However that does not make those things inferior or worthy of ridicule.

The problem is when we start ridiculing belief of someone as “childish” and have a sarcastic and condescending attitude towards it. I am unable to understand why it is difficult for the Swami to understand that the behavior he is considering childish has belief system of other person behind it. And it becomes all the more difficult to fathom that a person of his caliber, so much learned and giving discourse on how perspective change when we see things from the top and from higher cerebral and philosophical standing, cannot rise above prejudice of seeing this so called “childish” behavior from a colored perspective of blind belief or superstition.

It was very difficult for me to understand that how come learned people like him (and the others) fail to recognize that their faith can be termed as blind and ridiculed equally by the same people whose faith they are disparaging. So when he ridicules other when they follow vastushastra or say tie many sacred red threads around their wrist, the Swami forgets that his faith or belief (which they say is reason driven) of say getting up at 4am as the guna “satva” is very active and should be leveraged to connect to a higher being, can also be ridiculed. In those scenarios people like Swami would again bemoan the ignorance prevalent in the masses which are ridiculing their “scripture driven” lifestyle. Point is any belief can be ridiculed equally and supremacy of one over another cannot be demonstrated by force unless someone following a belief wants to learn more and then rectify those things in his life which he believes are not in synch. But till then should his belief be considered downtrodden and not worthy? It’s a tough one to answer. Finally it boils down to one’s own choice. Like Krishna after 18 chapters of Gita still tells Arjun, this is what it is “now do what you want to do”.

What do we mean by blind belief? I am not sure but it seems that people think blind belief is something not backed by a “reason” or something which appears stupid to a third person. Moreover this argument makes me most uncomfortable as it gives precedence to reason over everything. And this argument wants to analyze everything from the perspective of reason, a perspective I do not subscribe. The argument is whether it’s the problem of the person being considered as “superstitious, blind faith holder” or the person who are thinking him as “superstitious and blind faith holder”. Reading stories about Sufis like Bulle Shah you could realize how badly people of those times treated him and how in the coming generation he was considered a Sufi saint. Therefore reasoning is just a cerebral level of thinking and it may fall short for many people. What Bulle Shah could think his peers thought to be “stupid and crazy”. But once the generations following understood what Bulle Shah was speaking he was deified.

So if a person thinks that changing the position of a table in his home (vastu shastra) would bring him good luck, why can’t the so called intellectuals and apologists of logic consider this to be a reason (if that pleases them). I come from a school of thought that we should not assign superiority to any one of them. We should not analyze belief from the perspective of reason and should not dissect reason using belief.

The Swami also talked about how come people do not understand the real reason of doing a yagna (hawan) or prayer and just do it as a ritual. He also talked about a bank Chairman praying for 3 hours daily and then while in office making the lives of his reportees hell. I failed to understand whats the connect here? It seems the Swami wanted to convey that prayers should be used to seek knowledge, to think good of people etc. But then in his office the person is doing his work (in line with the Bhagwad Gita) and this argument of bank Chairman defies the fact that Gita tells us to do what is our work without thinking about its repercussions.

He also talked about people doing hawan but not imbibing its spirit of doing good to others and living in peace. Though I do understand its better to imbibe the real spirit behind a ritual but then doing the ritual in itself may give peace to people doing it. Hence they may not feel any need to imbibe hawan in its true spirit. Problem is when the Swami thinks that imbibing is the best thing to do and just doing hawan does not suffice. I understand after reading so much scriptures and being so knowledgeable people would like to share their perceived wisdom. However what I am uncomfortable with is when these people tend to ridicule those people who are not performing rituals the way they want. However if someone is an authority of a subject then he must intervene if he finds that the subject is not being followed the way it is.

I also had similar feelings towards people who used to call them Ghazal lovers and used to consider Ghulam Ali or Jagjit Singh as the Ghazal singers to follow. I used to ridicule them or had a condescending attitude towards them but then I relinquished that thought. I used to never touch feet of elderly people under the pretence and stupid argument of “unless it comes from within its not respect”. But then I realized I may not be really respecting those elders but then if they feel good when I prostrate before them or touch their feet while greeting them what prevents me from doing that. Why can’t I do this if that makes them feel good? Therefore we can and should do those things which make others happy (as long as it does not violate our sense of self respect and value system).

That is where I think “to each his own” thought comes into picture. What people think and what makes them happy which could be termed as “ignorance, blissful negligence” etc by the esoteric elite, should be done. Though I am a staunch supporter of being good to people and performing more acts of goodness than plain rituals, I do not force my arguments on others and would consider people also not forcing their belief/reason system on others worth appreciating. Moreover knowledge seeker should be humble and should have communion with the God. I found these to be lacking in the Swami.