UNLEARNING LEARNED ALREADY
In childhood we learned
A variety of things unknown
Some about ghosts and phantoms
Some about the worlds laced in mystery
From our parents we hold dearly
And from our dearest grandparents present
In the household
We are born to.
This knowledge is incomplete
Since in childhood
We’re not so mature enough
To weigh what is right and what is wrong
This learning has to be unlearned
When we reach the next stage of our life cycle
And our understanding and intelligence
In which we can comprehend what is out of date
And full of afflictions
Bereft of any comprehension
Is considered to be discarded
And what to be retained.
For living a life of composure
And a life full of sound purpose
It is better to unlearn the lesson learnt
Which creates impediments
Rather than helps in our further march
For a peaceful living with God’s grace.
UNLEARNING THE LEARNED KNOWLEDGE
The need for unlearning of some aspects of habits that we have already imbibed for use in our day to day life, during our childhood or during our interaction with our close relatives and friends. Some savoir-faire that we get is extremely important for projecting our viewpoint but there are some habits or know-how which, sorry to say, need to be weeded out or unlearned due to these being out of date or may be bordering on uncivilized behavior presently.
This aspect was brought home during my recent rail journey. I was really very disappointed at the tone and tenor and the rude language being used by one of the passengers while explaining about a thing. It was later learned that the concerned passenger (father) was hurling abuses to the other passenger (his own son) in front of others and the son too paid him in the same coin! I felt very surprised, firstly by the use of inappropriate language by the father and subsequently reaction of the son was equally bad thus proving the dictum ‘Like son like father’. Although I could not intervene at that time since it was a matter between father and his son yet what I could expediently do was to pen down the incident so that this sort of unsavory behavior is highlighted and concerted efforts made for unlearn some habits and behavior patterns considered unethical and sometimes immoral.
In another scenario, if son should have remained mute spectator after abusive tirades on the son and should have fumbled for self esteem and self confidence in real life. It goes to show that the language learnt and used or the behavior or habits we imbibe in our childhood and thereafter impact our lifestyle. Or if the son having paid in the same coin, then we must have denigrated son more than his father or equally to both. Foul language or foul behavior has to be unlearnt the unethical thoughts and knowledge and stop becoming ‘kalyug ka Ravan’ or remove demon like afflictions from our midst. Need is to unlearn the thoughts and knowledge which has taken root in us and adopt new avenues for aspiring for fresh knowledge.
Holy Quran describes Job as a righteous servant of Allah, who was afflicted by suffering for a lengthy period of time. However, it clearly states that Job never lost faith in God and forever called to God in prayer, asking Him to remove his affliction:
Unlearning too is dependent on the pre-conceived notion that the notions we are having is wrong and require unlearning. It could be on small issues or issues which have far reaching consequences.
The knowledge gained and worth retention is the one which is life centred and stands in good stead for keeping in peace not only individual concerned but also people around him/her. This is for the purpose of spreading light on others.
The conditioning that comes into force in our life during childhood remains indelible in our system. These conditioning may be partially right and partially wrong but during childhood everything is taken as a gospel truth because of lack of discernment. This aspect is compounded when children are surrounded by ignorant elders and other vest interests who do not want the innocent minds to have all round development / grow horizontally and vertically.
BIBLE PROCLAIMS:Good sense is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly. Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance,
In scientific jargon many theories got changed; for example Quantum theory demolished the earlier held notion of the nature of reality, about philosophies of cause and effect thereto etc.
During our childhood, we are fed with different versions about life, about births and deaths, about hell and heaven, about earth and planets, etc. It solely depends on the knowledge of the parents or more so the grandparents who feed us stories about the ghosts and phantoms to create a fear psychosis in the children to get things done from them or make believe world of living creatures in some planets. Then fables about Chanda Mama and the fables related by our grandmother about the kings and queens and other historical heroes of a nation or others who helped to change the thinking about different aspects of life.
We empty a glass of water in order to refill it and if there is anything which has spoilt its purity of the content, the whole water has to be thrown out. Similar is the case with the knowledge which is stale and obsolete and does not serve any purpose. Knowledge is continuous assimilation and in the process Knowledge has a vast connotation rather than mere collection or computation of information. When we construe that we have learned everything, then our learning trajectory becomes bleak.
During our childhood, we are fed with different versions about life, about births and deaths, about hell and heaven, about earth and planets, etc. It solely depends on the knowledge of the parents or more so the grandparents who feed us stories about the ghosts and phantoms to create a fear psychosis in the children to get things done from them or make believe world of living creatures in some planets. Then we all must have heard fables about CHANDA MAMA and the fables of grandmothers who relate old stories about the kings and queens and other historical heroes of a nation or others who helped to change the thinking about different aspects of life.
The conditioning that comes into force in our life during childhood remains indelible in our system. These conditioning may be partially right and partially wrong but during childhood everything is taken as a gospel truth because of lack of discernment. This aspect is compounded when children are surrounded by ignorant elders and other vest interests who do not want the innocent minds to have all round development / grow horizontally and vertically.
The main purpose of karma should be to follow a life of idealism with that the desire and fear and to bring in the dawn of pure freedom with unconditioned mind. A sum total of direct and indirect experiences which condition of mind have to be taken care of. Since illuminating part of the life has to be kept which may help to keep us away from any undue attachments and keep us glued with our mind related desires. It should be remembered that past supports only recreativity of the original creativity and original creativity is fresh and of use.
When we attain adulthood, we meet our peer groups, attend formal and informal institutions for our growth and development, we are constrained to unlearn or unburden ourselves of solid conditioning that happens during the childhood – almost everything that we have lean in the childhood.
After having put our foothold into formal educational institutions, we adopt different stream according to our intelligence thereby acquire the knowledge about 3R – reading, writing and arithmetic’s besides scrubbing off the childhood conditioning.
As far as knowledge, there is no end to it and with the onset of internet revolution, we have access to variety of knowledge with a click of our computer, mobile etc. We can clear our doubts just instantaneously, talk to experts in different fields and quench our thirst for knowledge. Besides, having gained knowledge on different subjects and having specialized ourselves in one subject, we choose our profession to which we are suited.
It is also a fact that KNOWLEDGE is seamless and no limitations or limits. It is so vast and varied. How best to attain knowledge depends on our capability and ambition to get and also what to get? It could be renewed or refreshed on daily basis.In other words it is a continuous process and when we say we learn knowledge from ‘cradle to grave yard’ there is no exaggeration in this saying. .
We should adopt spiritual inclined way of thinking and acting. A life based purely on dharma and eliminate adharma from our thoughts and behavior. This could be done solely by eliminating the stale and useless thought percepts which afflict or those precepts with life-centred approach..
GURU GRANTH SAHIB JI describes that the focus of the Guru is on purifying the heart and becoming more Life-centred/Naam-centred and realising that the self is part of Life and supported by it, so there is no gain by being self-centred, to the exclusion of others.
It is due to the women
That we’re here on this beautiful planet
The relations
Such as daughter
– the one who looks after us when need assistance
in the son’s absence
Gone somewhere to pursue his ambitions
Sister, who reminds us that we can bank on her when we need help
Daughter-in-law, continues our family and its traditions
Wife, who comes from other family
dissimilar in cultural mores and traditions
but imbibes everything of the adopted household
Nurses everybody
Becomes home-maker
Takes responsibility of the children and elder members alike
Mother, mothers us from the birth to different stages of our life
without any demand whatsoever
Mother-in-law, gives us motherly love
you just introspect and see
How much women mean to us
Without them what we would be
Nay, our existence will not be there
for writing these lines
Now, finally our MOTHER DIVINE
Who created everything and everybody
Including the Gods
Without Her this world and universe
would not have been there at all
MY WARM RESPECT TO THE WOMEN
WARM REGARDS TO THE VENERABLE WOMEN