Blind Faith

Last weekend, the establishment was attacked by rampaging supporters of a fraud-man convicted on cases of rape. The discussions centred on the same old stuff: the claim to be God, the legion of celebrity followers, political patronage, the fleet of cars, unimaginable wealth and, the sordid controversy about the guy’s brutal behaviour with his female devotees and a trail of murders.

The justification of the illogical indignation was described as a ‘matter of faith’. The blind faith was buttressed by arguments of the positive ‘social work’ by the fraud-man and his sect. The blind followers were using unrelated reasoning that no crime is possible by one whom they saw as having done a lot of good.

Obviously, some of the followers may be partners-in-crime but it is pertinent that the majority belongs to ones who have surrendered their ability to distinguish between right and wrong. They defend not only the indefensible; they are blinded by their misplaced faith in the fraud man.

The objection to any self-styled God-man’s ‘powers’ is fundamental. If they claim cosmic ability to change destiny and to heal the human body, then why don’t they just heal themselves, or change the script for suicidal farmers? The counter-argument he-does-so-much-charity does not condone the assumption of divinity. Surely, philanthropy is not novel.

There are committed citizens who are taking on challenges head-on, yet they don’t claim to be God. Blind faith is enchantingly deceptive as it makes us shift the onus of responsibility from ourselves to the mystic. But proactive action is the one that shall salvage our situation. Our country needs less of god-men who indulge in sham speech to offset their crimes and more of good men who initiate appropriate actions.

Don’t let blind faith choke ability to reason
open your mind to scrutinise every action!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Less Shame

‘Wow, my father an astronaut, I feel so full of …. what’s the opposite of shame?’ – Bart Simpson
‘Pride?’ – Marge Simpson
‘No, not that far from shame.’ – Bart Simpson
‘Less shame?’ – Homer Simpson
‘Yeah.’ – Bart Simpson

The above episode of the comic strip of the ‘Simpsons’ makes a pertinent point. We wrongly believe that the opposite of shame would be to have pride. In fact pride and its allied indignation and irrationality rise often from the feeling of shame.

Shame is the sentiment that there is something basically wrong with me. The emotion of guilt is about doing something wrong, whereas shame is about being wrong at the fundamentals. The feeling of shame rises from the belief of being basically flawed, inadequate, unimportant, undeserving or not good enough.

We become addicted to our core shame belief. It gives us a feeling of control over other people’s feelings and behaviour. It makes us believe that others are rejecting us, or behaving in unloving ways, because of our inadequacy. Secondly it shields us from other feelings that we are afraid to feel, and gives us a sense of control over our own feelings.

We find it difficult to move beyond shame because we are addicted to the feeling of control that our shame-based beliefs give us: control over others’ feelings and behaviour, and control over our own genuine feelings. We can heal our shame when we accept that others feelings and behaviour have nothing to do with us.

We camouflage our shame by anger towards self or others or we tend to raise the pride flag. For instance, if I have a sense of shame of being part of a community that discriminates against others, I may flaunt my pride of belonging to it. However, if I feel ‘less shame’ I will be less prone to irrational indignation. Eventually, ‘less shame’ comes from the realisation that we are not responsible for the harsh reality.

Change the script by moving to ‘less shame’
False beliefs lead to angry pride that’s lame!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Lesson Learnt

My friend, Shashidhar Byali has many anecdotes of his life as a sailor. The best ones to listen to are those of great challenges and ‘near or clear’ errors of judgement or delivery. Shashi tells often about a log book that had to be filled to record the happening. The most important detail was testing but important to be declared: lesson learnt!

'Lesson Learnt’ is a valuable tool used by various organizations. They are experiences extracted from an assignment that become guidelines for future assignments of same or similar nature. It is an effective evaluation of the occurrence with clear insights into the what, how and why of things that went right or wrong.

NASA defines ‘lesson learned’ as knowledge or understanding gained by experience. The experience may be positive, as in a successful test or mission, or negative, as in a mishap or failure. These lessons highlight strengths or weaknesses in preparation, design, and implementation that affect performance, outcome and impact.

Experience is a great teacher. However, we must remember that ‘lessons are not meant to be taught… lessons have to be learnt’. Hence we must define and declare the ‘lesson learnt’ from every experience. It will be the guideline for future initiatives and ensure effectiveness due to the learning gained from the understanding.

After each experience, whether success or failure
‘Lesson Learnt’ helps us be better for the future!

~ Pravin Sabnis

Reason eclipsed

Many years ago, during a training for an organisation, we were served lunch in their canteen. The person who accompanied us was courteous but did not partake in the meal. He sheepishly admitted that he would not eat as his mother had instructed him to abstain from food during the eclipse that was occurring that day.

He told us that during the eclipse, all water and cooked food would be thrown out as it would be contaminated. After the end of the eclipse, all would bathe and fresh water would be filled from the tap and used to cook fresh food. My colleague asked him, ‘Do you empty the overhead tank, the reservoirs and rivers as well? Surely they would be under great exposure to be contaminated.’

Even the educated succumb to the canard, because we think that it does no harm to follow a tradition with seems to do no harm. But our thinking is eclipsed in more ways than one. While fasting during an eclipse, or any other time, is not bad as long as our body can take it; surely throwing away edible food and water is not acceptable.

So often we base our actions on blind beliefs. Premises based on invalid references lead to the eclipse of reason. False notions and misplaced logic leads to wrong inferences. Most fallacies are propped up by the crutches of distorted scientific principles. After all, we so easily allow our reason to be eclipsed by blind belief.

Let’s keep unscientific blind belief at bay…
Reason should not be eclipsed on any day!

~ Pravin Sabnis