We wake up to read disastrous news - crime, murders, rape and corruption. Throughout the day you are bombarded with such pieces of information. You feel the world around you is insane. You get into a crowded train --- with mad rush, the people seem to have gone mad , you think -- they seem to care nothing but somehow squeezing in and reaching their destinations. In the crowded train you feel all alone. Next you reach your college or workplace. Again you feel the system has gone terribly wrong and deteriorated and gone beyond repair. Thanks to the media and the society projecting things in a certain manner,we have developed this perception.
But at same time we neglect the other aspects of life which do exist in the same world -- a world which seems to be in a state of despair. If you dig deeper into the news, you will ceratinly find success stories. They are no ordinary stories -- they are stories which will make any nation proud. But due to the pessimism prevalent in our country , we are not ready to look at them. We constantly deny their existence. For example, ISRO launched 15 satellites at time -- a first for any nation. India is close to develop a system capable of shooting missiles with missiles. 'Primes in P' a paper which presented a simple solution to long unsolved problems was published by Indian scientists. India is developing 'Chandrayaan' an unmanned mission to moon. The list is only indicative. If this aspect is projected by the media and the society , we may have a radically different outlook towards life a radically different way of look at things. The point I am trying to drive is that it is perception that determines the way we approach life or the way we interact with others. Certainly, there is truth in it but it can not be absolute.
We live in a bewildering world! We believe in worlds that do not exist and do not believe in the ones that do exist. We spend hours at gaming console trying to make those virtual objects achieve their tasks and goals. Reality shows have nothing real in them. But we do ignore the problems of the society as if they are not real. We are unwilling to accept success stories.We refuse to accept rational arguments on the events even if they are convincing ; we would rather accept the 'divine intervention' explanations given by so called religious or spiritual leaders without cross-questioning. We believe in reincarnations when not one of us has seen what happens after death . Not just this, we even see what we want to see !! Cognitive experiments by scientists have now confirmed that humans have 'sustained inattentional blindness' meaning that human vision is task-oriented ; if attention is focussed on a task , our visual system ignores or is not able to capture other events !!
So can I say that, what we believe is a perception rather than the truth ? What is 'absolutely real' or what is 'absolute truth' in this world ? I would like leave you with what the great socialist leader Subhas Chandra Bose had to say in his unfinished autobiography -- 'An Indian Pigrim' under the chapter 'My Faith -- philosophical' ; even before the digital era was born :
"Reality is, after all , too big for our frail understanding to fully comprehend. Nevertheless, we have to build our life on the theory which contains the maximum truth.We cannot sit still because we cannot, or do not , know the Absolute Truth."
