Clear Thinking-Happy LIving

We are in the era of information explosion. We are bombarded with information by electronic, print and social media 24x7. Every piece of information seems to be valuable and true. While it is good to be informed but excess of information like excess of food can only harm our body and mind. We get confused by the abundance of information since these are contradictory and we are not sure what is truth and what is false.

The solution is not to avoid information and close our eyes and ears to what is happening in the world but to develop the ability to see the truth clearly by developing clear thinking. Following rules may be useful in developing clear thinking.

1: Discover Truth Yourself

Truth is like a shy maiden. It is always hidden behind the veil and its face is revealed only when the veil is removed. We have to always search the truth as it never comes to us following our desires. What comes to us of its own is not truth. We often consider the news items of the print or electronic media as true while most information is only half-truth.

There is a famous saying in media that if dog bites a man it is no news but if a man bites a dog that is news. What we see on the different types of media is nothing but a second hand truth which contains the prejudices and vested interest of the people through whom it has reached us. If there are thousand good acts by people, you may never know from media but one bad act is reported to us 24x7. This disproportionate coverage of evil gives us the impression that the world has become extremely evil while the reality is quite different which can be ascertained only if you take the pain to know the truth yourself. We are also often enamored by what we read in the different books in our schools and colleges thinking that every world written there is true. We must remember that all knowledge acquired from other people is second hand and we must develop the habit of learning the knowledge first hand, particularly if it is important for us.

2: Learn To Think Clearly

Most colleges teach us ‘what to think’ and not ‘how to think’. The difference between the two is that of day and night. If you think only what you ought to think, you only know what is already known before. Such knowledge is hardly of any use because what has worked in earlier situation on a different set of people can’t work now. Unfortunately most of the collages in India want the student not to think independently and promote rote learning by awarding highest grades to those who reproduce the tutored answers instead of answers that comes from their own mind.

We are so much accustomed to the pursuit of our second hand knowledge that when we come face to face with the real life problems, we want others to help us solve our problems as we can’t think of a creative solution. Our weakness is then exploited by many Gurus and experts in the business and religious field who often make us their slave by deciding our course of life.

It is therefore important to learn ‘how to think’ because if you develop this habit you can find solution of all problems using the expertise and knowledge of the self and others.

Let us take an example. We are often impressed by the motivational speaker who provides us the example of few successful people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Narayana Murthy, Amitabh Bacchan or Nareredra Modi who rose from their humble background to become extremely successful in their lives. While it is good to get motivated by their powerful speeches, let us also remember that if being successful would have been that easy to know, the speaker would have been running a billion dollar empire rather than motivating others for few thousands rupees. 

We must learn to face the reality, even if it is bitter. You must know that according to the statistics, only one in five ventures survive beyond five year, and only one in a million becomes a Bill Gate or Steve Jobs. For every book that is a great success, there are hundreds of books which can’t recover even their printing cost and behind every book that is published there are hundreds of authors whose books are never published. Yet every budding author expects to become a best-selling author like Chetan Bhagat or Amish Tripathi in India. In reality most creative efforts fail and the leaders, entrepreneurs, artists or writers suffer great pain and disappointment. Yet no one tells you about the failures and no case studies are done on ‘failures” and the failure punches your face when you are least prepared for it.

So whenever someone give you a great motivational speech, don’t just trust them blindly but get the facts before you accept any claim.

3: Beware of the Illusions  

We are attracted towards the successful people and try to copy them in the hope of repeating their success in our life. However, almost all copycats are disappointed. To understand their failures, we must understand what is called ‘Swimmer’s body illusion’.

We are quite attracted to the body of the professional swimmer’s because it is proportionate and streamlined. Hence many people start doing swimming regularly in the hope of developing similar bodies. However, they soon understand that however hard they try, their body does not become any closer to the body of professional swimmer. The reason is simple. You can’t get a streamlined body because you swim best, you swim best because you have streamlined body. Unless your body is designed in a particular manner you can’t become a great swimmer.

This illusion is there in many other fields. You don’t become beautiful, like the model, by using the cosmetic products because the truth is that the model was already beautiful and hence she was selected for the advertisement. Yet we believe the illusion created by the advertiser that the cosmetics are responsible for the beauty and our weakness is exploited by the companies all over the world.

4: Know Yourself

There is nothing in this world which is source of happiness or sorrow for everyone. We all have different likes and dislikes. What you like most is hated by someone. When you go to a shop, you find some cloths extremely attractive and some extremely repulsive. However, remember that even those cloths, which you would not wear even if someone pay you for it, are liked by some people—otherwise mills would not have made those cloths.

We all like something and dislike something. If you do something which you don’t like, you can’t focus on the work and you will also get tired very soon. When you like something, you automatically remain focused on your task and you also do not get tired while working for long hours. That is the reason why some students perform poorly and some very well in classes even though they study for same number of hours. Your success or failure is a result of the fact if your aptitude matches with what you do.

Your happiness increases when you do what you love and decreases when you are forced to do what you hate. Hence, try to discover what you love to do like writing, reading, music, art, sport or anything which you love to do. The best would be choose a profession where you can devote more time on what you love and least time on what you dislike instead of thinking about the remuneration. Even if you can devote only little time everyday on such activities, you shall always have joy in your life.

You must therefore know yourself from your experience and contemplation. Once you know yourself well, you are already on the road to happiness.

5: Learn to Appreciate Your Culture and Traditions

Man is a social animal. He can’t survive independently. In the modern world, the entire world is interconnected but we are most connected to the society in which we live. We inculcate the values of the society at such an early age that it goes into our subconscious mind and become part of our consciousness.

Every society has certain values which are passed on from one generation to another. Many of these values are not rational, yet these are the values which are common in the society and connect all people in one thread.    

We must understand that rational thinking can only tell us ‘what the reality is’ and not ‘what it should be’ or ‘what it could be’. The values of the society are created by religions, culture, traditions and mythologies which have penetrated into the deepest consciousness of people over generation and they deeply believe these values. If you remove common belief in people, the society shatters and every individual becomes free caring only for themselves.

This is what has happened in most developed countries. Let us take the divorce rate which reflects the sanctity of marriages in different societies. The divorce rates of most western countries and East European countries are quite high: Belgium (71%), Spain (61%), France (55%), USA (53%), UK (47%). The divorce rates in India are still less than 1%.

In fact, divorces have become so common that couples prefer live-in relationship or cohabitation rather than marriage in West.  Between 1960-2010, the number of cohabiting couples increased 17-fold in USA. While Norway tops the list with more than 50% live-in relationship, it is 23% of relationships in USA. Among women, 68% of unions formed in 1997-2001 in USA began as live-in relationship rather than as a marriage. In India, such relationships are virtually nonexistent as of now.

While being faithful is a cherished value of our country and we call our spouse as life-partner, fidelity has become an exception in most developed countries. According to one survey conducted by Durex in 2007, the average male has 29 partners in Australia while in New Zealand females have as many as 21 partners in their lives.

It would be shocking to know that in the United States of America, almost half of the children are born today from unmarried mothers. The number of live births to unmarried women in 2012 was over 1,6 million which was 40.7% of the total births of children in USA.

Hardly 10-20% of the children in developed countries have the benefit of living in unbroken families, a privilege which most children in India enjoy.

Hence, when we are impressed by the glamour and development of the Western World, we must also understand the price to be paid for individualism and breaking from our cultures and traditions. The reality of the Western World must serve us a warning not to imitate them as we too are bound to meet the same fate if we follow them blindly.

Conclusion

It is important for us to learn how to think clearly and accurately. We must not follow anyone or anything blindly lest we are exploited due to our ignorance which is like darkness. Only by clear thinking, we can see the reality as it is and achieve our goals successfully. 

False Images-Real Conflicts

It is extremely difficult to see the reality as it is. Stephen R. Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.” We are conditioned to see the world based on the mental pictures, we have created for our own selves, other individuals and the society in general. All our conflicts arise due to our wrong perceptions of these due to our erroneous images.

In the article “Whatis Preventing Our Clear Thinking?”, it was discussed that when we meet even an unknown person,  we see the person from multiple lenses like Name, Surname (Caste/Family), Religion, Country, Region, Educational Qualification, University etc. There are many other factors like sex, cloths, appearance, height, weight etc which further distort the image.

The problem with images of the reality is that they are not false but actually have some truth in them. When you take a image (picture) of a person, it is not false. Yet, it is true only for that moment from some angle and captures the feature/mood of the person in that moment. The image does not change even after years while the person is changing every movement.

Let us analyze some factors that cloud our understanding due to creation of images.

1: Image of self- We all have created an image of the self based on the same factors by which we create images of others. These images can be positive or negative. For example, surname representing caste/family may be a factor which may give you a feeling of superiority or inferiority. We are all conditioned from our childhood to consider our religion as the best, our country to be the greatest and our culture to be the ideal. This convincing is done through highlighting the positive and best things from what is belongs to us and at the same time focusing the negative traits of what belong to others. As we grow older and develop capability to develop our own images, our mind plays the same trick with our own selves. We think too much of our positives, suppress our negatives while we do just the opposite for others. This makes us feel good as we gain self confidence and desire to achieve great things in life. Some experts call such type of thinking “Positive Thinking”.

2: Image of others:  We also make the image of others by the same brush as we make ours. When we like someone due to some attribute like beauty, education, style, family background, or intelligence, our image of the person become bright and we attach almost every good thing with that person. We do just the opposite for the person whom we do not like. So we see some people better than us and feel inferior and see others as worse and feel superior.  Rarely do we see people as they are.

3: Image of Society: In the earlier times, when the media was not there, we knew the people personally and made our judgments about people based on our personal experience with the person. In tribal and rural areas, it may still be done on the same way. However, in the modern world, we know very limited people personally but know almost the entire world through others. With the advent of electronic, print media, internet and social networks today, we see much bigger world and we develop an image of group of people based on country, region, profession (politics, businessman, government officials etc.), culture etc. Since these images are based on the perception of others/media and not by direct experience, we pay the price for their error of judgment. Since the media is interested in sensation to increase their viewership and the negative news sells better than positive, we often see the negative sides of the world only with occasional glimpse of the good side of humanity. The image of all sections of the society, (except the one which we actually belong to and have the benefit of direct interaction with the people), are negative. However, the group which we belonged to is based more on reality as it is from direct perception not tainted by additional perception of the others.

Conflict of Images

Most of us build images of the self, others and the society which are far away from the reality. Yet the error is not uniform. Most of us have much positive image of ourselves, positive image of people whom we like and negative image of people whom we dislike. Similarly, we have much better image of the society/group/sub-group which we belong to and much negative image of the rest.  This result is the prevalence of conflicts in the society.

At the individual level, when we have positive image of those whom we love, we want to see only good qualities in the person. We have very high expectation from them whether they are our spouse, children, parents or the leaders whom we admire. So we can’t tolerate their shortcomings at all and quite disturbed when they fail to live to their image. In the same way, we condemn the people or group which we hate. Since we are not in a position to change them for better, we feel frustrated and angry. We are unable to see any good thing in them and dismiss all their good deeds as illusion.

Reducing the conflicts

Once we understand that the root cause of conflict is the type of images we carry for everyone, we can also find ways to resolve the conflict. We can easily see that we paint the picture of others by the same brush from which we draw our own image. So if we are proud/ ashamed of our caste/religion and have an image of caste/religion for the self, we can’t avoid the caste-religion-image of others. Hence, we must first eliminate this colour from the self image from our own mind. In the same way, if you have a great image for your country and you are a nationalist, there is no way, you can avoid the image of others based on their nationality. The image of education/University too can take root only when you consider that as an important factor in your life. Otherwise you can also see that many great saints, wise men and even great scientists like Thomas Edison or great entrepreneur like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs had no affiliation with any great university.

We have to first break all the images of our own selves before we can think of breaking image of others. Every colour of the image that you drop for the self (like caste, religion), you do the same for others. Finally when we have no image of the self, we have no image for others and then we develop the vision to see the reality as it is as we have become self-realized by connecting to our deepest self-Atman or Self which is the spark of (the same) God and all differentiations disappear. At this stage, all conflicts are eliminated forever. We know yourself clearly and that give us the vision to see the world clearly.

What is Preventing Our Clear Thinking?

We know the importance of thinking clearly for achieving success in our life and enjoying a happy life.  All good and evil, all our joys and sufferings are due to our thoughts as William Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

A person with clear thinking sees the world “as it is” and knows the “real world” while a person lacking this ability sees “conceptual world” based on his “concepts”. These concepts are not reality but like an image or colored lenses which prevent us seeing the reality clearly.  It is like seeing a white cloth with a green color lenses. You do not see the white cloth but see “red cloth”.

When we see the world, we see it using our perception, understanding, images which has become so deeply interwoven in our minds that they have become our  “commonsense” and we do not even realize that we are making a mistake. If it is external lenses, we can perhaps remove it to see clearly but the commonsense is so much ingrained within our mind due to the conditioning of our minds since childhood that it is very difficult to get rid of it. Einstein said rightly said, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

The Reality of Distorted Vision

Let us try to understand our inability to think clearly by an example.

You are a CEO of a company and you are going to appoint a person for your Sales Department in your office. The person who is being called for the interview is named Mr Ram Sevak Pandey, from Bihar (India) with a Bachelor of Science from Delhi University (India). We have yet to meet person but we have already formed the image of the person based on the images we have developed in our mind since our childhood. Let us analyze these images one by one

1.       Name: “Ram Sevak” is a name which is quite ancient (Hindi) meaning “Servant of (Lord) Rama”. The name perhaps gives you a feeling of his rural/traditional back ground.

2.       Surname: “Pandey” is surname belonging to “Brahmin caste”, which is on the top of the caste hierarchy.  The image of the caste is different in the mind of different people. For Brahmins, he may be one of them while for lower caste people; he may be an exploiter of their people for thousands of years. For some people, the caste is elite as represents intellectual bent of mind while others may be indifferent to the caste.

3.       Religion: The name indicate the religion of the person as “Hindu” and you may have a typical image of people of Hindu religion like orthodox, idolater, corrupt, unprincipled, flexible depending upon your experience of life or the experience of others/media. Your image also depends on your own religion and the relationship of your religion with Hindu religion.

4.       Country: One who knows “India” has an image of the country which is based on the limited information about the country based on the media reports or personal experiences of friends. This image is different in every person. If you are Indian, it may be positive and if you are from an Islamic country, it could be a great negative.

5.       Region: While those who are not familiar with the intricacy of India may pay no attention to the region “Bihar”, but those who know the place have an image of Bihar. It is different if you are a “Bihari” (Resident of Bihar) and different if you are an outsider. It depends on your personal experience with a person of Bihar origin.

6.       Qualification: You may have an image of the students of B. Sc. And hence their suitability for the present job. The image may be based on the observation of just one person or purely on heresy and even on hypothesis based on your like/dislike of science as a subject.

7.       University: We have all images of the university based on the knowledge available to us. For example, we may consider Harvard University graduate smarter than Delhi University. It also depends on our image of the place Delhi and our experience of the students of Delhi University.

The Distorted Image

We all have the tendency to judge the person based on our images rather than judging the person who he or she is. In this case, we are seeing the person from multiple images (Name)(Surname)(Religion)(Country)(Region)(Qualification)(University). We are hardly able to see the real person.

The worst part is that we are not even aware that we are not seeing the reality and judging the person based on our prejudices/images. So even before we meet the person, we view the person from our images. Naturally, this image is quite incorrect which we realize when the person appears for the interview. He does not look, dress, speak or walk like what we imagined. Still instead of changing our image, we often try to change the reality of the person to fit into our image. So if we do not like the person based on our image and consider him to be unsuitable for the job, we ask more difficult questions to him as compared to one whom we have thought to be the right candidate.

There is an unconscious attempt to validate our preconceived image of the person and prove that we were right in our perception. We are more likely to ask difficult questions from the person whom we don’t like as the candidate would fail to answer these questions and our image is validated. We “desire” (unconsciously) to reject the person as we have already rejected him based on his image.

Once in a while the candidate may turn out to be too smart and we are forced to change our image. Yet the more he proves us wrong, the higher we raise the bar till such time the person fails and we are proven right.

Seeing the Reality

It is not easy to break all the images we have gathered in our life and see the reality as it is. Yet the very knowledge of the existence of these images in our minds and its effect on “clear thinking” can help us in correcting the defect. We must challenge the images in our mind by by gathering more “facts” and by proper reasoning and logic. Only when we are free from all images, we can develop the vision to see the reality and develop clear thinking.