Monday, March 4, 2013

Everything is right


A dog can see all around him only in black and white, whereas, a bee can see thousands of colours.
It is an interesting observation that the world around us is the same, but everybody sees and experiences it differently. So, do you experience the world right, or do I see it right? What is the right way to live?
To a certain degree, people analyse day to day affairs with respect to a certain set of rules. These sets of rules might be defined by an individual himself, or they could be adapted from religion, plenty of stuff to choose from..
Now see, the problem is that on a planet full of 7 billion people, with every guy having a different set of rules/views on life, these views often tend to clash. Say for example, the Hindu-Muslim clash in our country and many more around the world on smaller and larger scales. This is because of the common understanding that in the case of two opposing arguments, only one is correct and the other is commended to oblivion.
THIS NEED NOT BE!!!

Allow me to recollect an ancient Jain story..
The Four Blind Men 
In a small village lived four blind men. They were told about an exotic animal that was going to be brought to the village; the elephant. None of them had ever seen or heard about an elephant before, so they decided to go find out what an elephant was really like.When taken to the elephant, visual inspection was obviously not possible. So they began touching and feeling the elephant to get a mental picture of the animal. The man who was standing near the legs of the elephant commented that the animal seemed like some sort of pillar. The person near the trunk inferred that it was some sort of snake. The man holding the tail imagined it to be somewhat similar to a dog or a donkey. The fourth man examined the belly of the elephant and declared it to be a blob of meat. Even months after the elephant went,the four blind men quarrelled about the shape and size of the elephant, and took this dispute to their graves.
The point to be realised here is that none of them were wrong, each one of them was correct in their own perspectives. But all of them missed the bigger picture, and also lost their friendship in the process. This is exactly what is happening in today's world. Everybody seems to have developed a certain understanding of the world, and will valiantly defend it in case of any arising contradictions, without realising that both of them might be correct, at the same time.
All I'm trying to say is that after listening to all this, if you still think that your viewpoint is correct, then you have every right to think so; but if you say that your views are right and mine are wrong, then no body in this world would be more wrong than you.And this is how everything and everyone is right; ' wrong-ness' is in declaring other people to be wrong.

-'Maharaja' SP
(2nd year, Mechanical)

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